Generation Dead (Book 3): Beyond The Gates (5 page)

Chapter 11

We drove north, backtracking our way to Route 20, looking to head west again.  When we crossed the river, we were stopped by a truck parked on the other side of the road.  One of the men with the truck had stepped into the road, and we had the choice to run into him, or stop and see what he wanted. 

I slid the back window open and flicked the safety off of my rifle.  If this was to go south, a lot of bullets were going to fly very quickly.  I didn’t stick the barrel out the window, no sense in letting them see what we had to offer.  I didn’t think we would have much to worry about, though; the marauding and savage gangs that had roamed the dead world after the zombies had risen were pretty much non-existent now.  When the army had rolled across the country, most of them had been either pacified or killed, depending on their preference, and the only thing we had run into on this trip were very curious teenagers looking for a chance to be considered “bad”.

Jake rolled down the window and stopped about ten yards back.  He wasn’t a fool and usually didn’t walk into an ambush without a plan.  Knowing Jake, he had already catalogued where everyone was, and how he was going to use the van as a weapon if it came to it.

The man who hailed us stayed where he was.  That told me he was cautious and likely legitimate.  Someone who wanted trouble would be approaching, trying to distract us while their comrades snuck up to do damage.

“Hello the van!  Have you come from either the east or the south?”

Jake answered loudly.  “Both actually.  Just spent a night in a house by the lake, south of here.”

The man conferred quickly with the three other men by the truck, then turned his attention back to Jake.  “Y’all didn’t happen to see a couple of little zombie kids, did ya?”

Jake nodded.  “Matter of fact we did.  They came on us last night, and we put them down.  Buried them near the house this morning.  Looking for them?”

The man nodded slowly, and one of the men in the truck looked down, cursing.  If I had to guess, that one was likely a relation.

“Obliged to ya. Kids got into an abandoned ranch north of here, and there was still an occupant from the old days.  Kids got away, but not before they both had been bit.  We killed the zombie, but lost track of the kids as they headed south.” The man shook his head again, and the men began readying the truck for travel.  “We’ll go claim the bodies for the family.  Ya’ll are welcome at Douglas; tell them Zack Confero sent you. “

Jake thanked the man, and we headed off.  From the look of things, we were rolling into a small personal tragedy.  I didn’t think they would have had any answers about the shooter we had encountered.

Douglas was a small town in the middle of Wyoming, about half the distance to Casper. The interstate ran around it, and the river ran through it.  We were stopped outside of town by the Broken Wheel Truck Stop, and after a few minutes of conversation, we were directed to the Douglas City Hall on the main street.  The building was small and brown, and likely had seen a few better days.  But it didn’t have the look of a building that had seen the worst of the Upheaval.  It just looked like the townsfolk had other things to do besides paint a building. 

Down the street was the Converse County Sheriff’s Dept., and that building looked like it had been hard hit at one time.  The windows were smashed, and scorch marks topped the doors and windows.  That made sense, since the hospital was across the street.  During the bad times, my dad said hospitals were ground zero for the infection, and anything close took its hits. A police department next to a hospital was an invitation for disaster,

We got out and stretched a bit before we went inside.  Several onlookers gave us the once over, but nothing that was anything more threatening than curiosity. Kayla and Julia got their share of attention as was to be expected, and I caught more than one man measuring my size against his own.  As long as it stayed looks only, I was fine.  Something more, we might have a disagreement.

The four of us trooped into the office and found a small reception waiting for us.  Apparently Mr. Confero had a way of communicating with home that allowed for some advance notice.  Three men were in a conference room near the front door, and a broad shouldered man with very red hair stood up to shake Jake’s hand. A large map of the state of Wyoming hung on the wall.  That map took my interest and held it.

“Mr. Talon? I’m Josh Nolan, mayor of Douglas.  How are you today?” He shook Jake’s hand and then turned to me.

“Mr…?”

I smiled as I turned and gripped his hand. “I’m Mr. Talon, too.  Jake’s my brother.”

“Ah! Excellent!  And these young ladies are…?” Mr. Nolan’s eyes travelled a little too appreciatively over my wife for comfort, so I decided to settle that issue immediately.

“These ladies are Julia and Kayla, Mrs. Talon, both of them. “ I smiled but didn’t let the smile reach my eyes, a message the mayor received immediately.

He let his eyes return to Jake. “I received word this morning that you would be stopping by.  Zack told me you had found our children?”

Jake nodded.  “We had found a place to stay for the night when we heard a shot, then a yell, then nothing. A zombie that had been shot tumbled out at us, and Aaron took him down. When we checked the corpse we saw he had been shot but not killed.  We saw then that he had been chewed on by little mouths.  Afterwards we heard a clicking sound like you hear when the little zombie kids are hunting.  We found a safer place to make a stand than in the middle of the weeds and waited for the kids to arrive.  Thankfully, there wasn’t more than two. We put them down.”

Jake wasn’t the best at public speaking, but he got the point across. I noticed the two other men in the room nodding. One of them, an older man with graying temples and western mustache, spoke up.

“Y’all said the first zombie had been shot?  Did you hear a shot?” the man asked quietly.

Jake turned his way.  “We did.  Matter of fact, it was the second person we had seen get shot like that.”

The man with the mustache cocked his head slightly sideways. “You don’t say.  Where might the other body be?” he inquired, just as quietly.

Jake shrugged.  “Can’t say exactly.  About a day’s drive south, southeast of here.”

Moustache Man nodded, more to himself than at what Jake was saying.  At length, he spoke again.  “Anything unusual about these bodies?”

Jake shook his head, and by his body language I could see he was getting impatient at the questioning. If we wanted to leave on good terms, I probably needed to speak up.

“As a matter of fact, there was.  But I have a feeling these bodies aren’t the only ones you’ve heard of or even seen, Mr…?” I used the same tactic the mayor did in getting to know my name.

“Blaine.  August Blaine. And you’re right.  They aren’t the first.”  He paused a minute to look at the mayor who slipped into a chair near the door.

“About five years ago a rancher south of here stumbled across a body.  No big deal, go to any town and you’ll find a corpse or two somewheres.  All part of the landscape these days.  Some of them corpses will kick back, if you take my meanin’.  Anyway, this one was different because the corpse had been shot in the back.  He was wearing black clothes and looked like he’d been runnin’ a while.  Sound familiar?” Blaine looked at me.

Julia spoke up.  “That’s what we saw!  He was lying face down with a big hole in his back, likely a heavy caliber rifle.  The shooter waited for him to clear a hill, then he shot him in the back.”

Blaine turned his attention to Julia. “And just how do you know that, young lady?” His interest was obvious, and not because she was beautiful.

“I tracked the dead man and read the signs,” Julia responded.

“You did?” Nolan smiled condescendingly. “Really, miss I hardly think…”

“You hardly think at all, that’s why you’re mayor,” Blaine said sharply, shutting off what might have led to a difficult situation.  Julia would have slapped the mayor silly if he kept being disrespectful.  “My apologies for our unthinkin’ public official, Mrs. Talon. He doesn’t know your background, that’s all.”

Jake shifted his feet.  “And you do?”

Blaine smiled, and the transformation to his face was amazing.  “I surely do.  I fought with your daddies when things went south some thirty years ago.  I remember meeting you when you was just a spud.  Seems like you turned out all right.”  Blaine turned to Julia and Kayla.  “I assume you all would be the daughters of Charlie James, and who else?”

Kayla smiled.  “Duncan Fries is my father.”

“My God!  He survived.  Never met a man who had more fun in a zombie apocalypse than him.  Hell of a fighter, though. Best man with a blade I ever saw, unless it was John.”

Kayla beamed.

“Anyways, we’d come across about two of these bodies a year, all looking the same, and dying the same way.  Last couple of them had some odd numbers pinned to their shirts, like they wanted something to be known.”

Julia gasped.  “We found that, too, on two of them! Do you know what it means?”

Blaine looked over at the third man in the room, and it was he who answered her.

“I wish I did, little lady.  But I do not,” the man answered.  He was a tall man, nearly as tall as myself.  He was thinner than me, but I could see he had a good deal of muscle in his arms and hands.  He was dressed casually, with what could be called a western style, right down to  worn boots and a stained, high-crowned hat.  On his hip rode a single action revolver in a worn holster.

“Name’s Andrew Page.  I’m what you might call a county sheriff in these parts. Most of the people in these here parts have their hands full trying just to survive, so I take up the slack and do what needs to be done when it comes to stuff the rest of the good folk don’t have the time for.” He smiled slightly.  “I also keep the peace, as it were.”

I smiled slightly at that and stayed silent, figuring the man had a little more to tell.  I wasn’t disappointed.

“Truth is, the people that died weren’t from around here.  No one knows who they are or where they came from. Being as they weren’t local, I didn’t pay too close of attention as maybe I might have. “ Page shrugged. “If I had to throw a guess out, I’d figure on using those numbers as a clue, although we never really had any luck figuring out what they were for. “

Jake spoke up.  “How hard did you try?”

Page shifted and squared up against Jake.  Jake for his part stared unblinkingly back at the taller man.

“We gave a good work up, but since there…”

“Were other things to do; yeah, we got that,” Jake interrupted.  “If we have nothing else to keep us here, is there any way we can get some supplies and be on our way?”

Jake’s sudden willingness to leave took the three men by surprise.  Blaine recovered first.

“Don’t take us the wrong way, son.  We’re just wanting to pass on some information and say thanks for dealing with that small problem,” Blaine said.

Jake shook his head.  “I think I understand just fine.  But there’s something we haven’t told you yet.”

“What’s that, son?”

“Aaron here had an encounter with the shooter in the dark, and in all likelihood gave him a permanent mark to remember it by,” Jake said.

The three men went silent like one of them farted. I looked at each of them as they looked at me and choose that time to speak.

“Your shooter is still out there somewhere.  Likely as not, he’s close.  The men you sent out to look for the zombie kids might have a chance at corralling him if they’re any good at tracking,” I said.

Andrew Page excused himself to go make a call.  Blaine looked at the four of us, and I saw the question in his eyes.

“Sorry, sir.  This really isn’t our fight.  But if we run across anyone with a big rifle and a nasty cut on their head, we’ll be sure to ask the right questions,” I said, adding, “Where can we get supplies?”

Blaine’s shoulders slumped a bit when he realized we weren’t going to help.  The Mayor’s response was noticeably cooler, and I could figure out why.  Why risk his own people when there were four capable people to do your dirty work for you?  Trouble was, we weren’t willing to do the dirty work.  That wasn’t why we were out here.

“End of the street.  McGinty’s Station.  He’ll have what you need. Thanks for taking care of the zombie kids.”  The mayor looked away, and I knew it was time to leave.

“Obliged, mayor,” I said. The girls left first, and Jake followed, with me bringing up the rear.  Just before I left, the mayor called out.

“Sure you won’t help? We could use you.”

“Positive.  We’ve got other things to do,” I said.  I wasn’t going to tell him what I meant, since that would get me another plea for help, but something stuck in my head, and I wanted to see if there was an end to it.

Trouble was, it may amount to my end, as it were.

Chapter 12

We left McGinty’s Station a little lighter in the wallet, but well-supplied for our next leg of our journey.  I wanted to be out of town before I voiced my thoughts to the rest of the family.

Ten miles down the road I told Jake to stop.  He chose a spot on a bridge that spanned a small river.  We stepped out and stretched a bit, taking in the morning sunlight.  It would still be a few hours till noon, but the weather was nice enough. There were small groves of trees here and there, and in the distance, larger hills rose out of the land.  If I had to pick a spot to stay, this could have been worse.

“What’s on your mind, Aaron?” Jake asked.

“You’d not believe me if I told you outright,” I replied, looking off to the west.  The bright sun made everything stand out in sharp focus.

“Try me.”

“I think I know what those numbers are, and I want to see where they lead,” I said.

I tried not to laugh as Julia’s and Kayla’s mouths dropped open. “Remember that map on the wall at the mayor’s office?”

Jake shrugged. “What about it?  I’ve got several in the van.”

“Trot them out, and I’ll show you. Julia, you have those numbers handy?” I said.

“Sure, hang on.” Julia stuck her head in the side of the van and came back with a small piece of paper and a pen.

“Now, let me show you how they make sense with two letters. “ I took the pen, added a capital letter N to the first numbers, and a capital letter W to the second set.  When I showed the group the light came on immediately.

Jake slapped his head.  “Latitude and longitude! I’ll be damned.”

I smiled.  “Right behind you, brother.  I saw those numbers on the map and figured it was the only thing they could be.”

“Where do they point to?” Kayla asked.

“We can figure out that later.  The question I have is do we want to follow this?  There’s some very dangerous people out there willing to kill to keep this place a secret,” I said.

Julia nodded.  “But by the same logic, there are people out there willing to risk death to try and get help.”

“Jake? Kayla?” I asked.

Jake looked at me with a half smile.  “Why not, Aaron? It’s what we do.”

I had to smile back as my brother hit me with my own logic in helping others.  I had recently adopted my father’s line, and it seemed to serve me pretty well.

“All right then.  Let’s get ourselves to Casper and see what we can see.  There’s plenty of time to find out where we are going, so let’s get ourselves at least comfortable when we do it,” I said, winking at Julia.

Julia blushed slightly, but gave me an extra wiggle of her butt as she put the paper back in the van.  Kayla brightened at the prospect of not spending another night in the van, and I could see Jake was happy about it as well.

We followed highway 25 and then split off onto highway 20.  Highway 25 was blocked by several vehicles and an old, faded wooden sign that just said “Closed.”  Likely the highway was choked with old cars trying to get out of Casper in the old days.

Highway 20 wasn’t much better, but at least the cars had been moved off to the side.   Jake drove carefully, making sure that nothing on the road could puncture our tires.  I had been down a road like this before, and the last time I lost both Jake and Julia.

A slow half hour later brought us to the outskirts of Glenrock.  First impressions weren’t that favorable, and I was a little apprehensive about all of the broken homes I was seeing as we travelled deeper into town.  I wasn’t feeling any better when I realized that with all of the cars stranded on the interstate, the people had to go somewhere, and that somewhere was right in front of us.

When we passed the high school, things became a lot clearer.  On the hills overlooking the football fields there were hundreds of bleached bones littering the hillsides.  Piles of bleached skulls stared out at us at from the bottom of the hill and the ditch. Nearly every one of them had a hole in the skull.

Jake slowed us down to look at the carnage. 

“What do you think?” He asked.

Julia looked out the other side of the van.  “Probably they set up a firing position on the bleachers right there, and picked them off as they either came over the hill or as they tried to get up after falling.”

“Think so?” Jake said.  “Seems like a stretch.”

Julia shrugged.  “That’s what I’d do.  There’s a fence around the football field, and a good solid school to hole up in.  People in the west grew up with guns, Jake.  Chances are there wasn’t any shortage of people who could shoot.”

Jake nodded thoughtfully and drove on with the vacant eyes of the skulls watching us go.