Life Among The Dead (49 page)

The candle is burning low by the time he finishes his tale. She is speechless for a spell as she lets it all sink in.

“
So, how was your journey?” Dan asks his wife.

“
We actually got here late that night. We had to gas up once. That was really scary.”

“
What happened?” Dan asks.

“
We stopped at this truck stop and there wasn’t a zombie in sight. We all got out to stretch our legs since it was safe. That’s when we saw them.”

“
Zombies?”

“
Yeah, they were down the road heading our way.”

“
Did you shoot them?” Dan asks. He remembers he had given her his 9mm.

“
No, they were far enough away that we didn’t have to. We all jumped back in the bus to be safe while one of the guys finished filling the tank.”

“
How many of them were there?”

“
Two.”

“
Only two?” Dan didn’t understand.
This can’t be the whole story.

“
But, it was an incline. They came at us downhill, and were much faster than the zombies at the hospital.”

Dan is happy she was never in any real danger, but he felt kind of screwed. He remains silent for a long time thinking about this.

“
What?” Heather asks. “Would you rather I had gone through what you had?”

“
No. God no.” Dan tells her the truth. “It’s just that I went to get the jeep with the machine gun and… It wasn’t needed. I blew up for no reason.”

“
Well, you thought you could keep us safe with the gun on the jeep.” She reiterates to him.

“
But, it wasn’t needed.”

“
You thought it could be useful.” She can see he is having trouble getting past this, she tries a different tact. “If you hadn’t blown up, nearly froze to death, been kidnapped by the cult, and all the rest, Jack wouldn’t have been found.”

“
That’s right.” Dan relaxes for a second before delving into the cause and effect of it.
It’s not true. If I didn’t meet the road warriors, I wouldn’t have delayed them. They wouldn’t have hit that soldier, causing the convoy to speed off. The ball still would have tripped the sensor light, and they would have found Jack.
He doesn’t go through this with his wife.
I’m being an ass.
He has her and his son, and they are all safe and sound. He’s just glad it wasn’t his idea to take the jeep. It was Jason who had the bright notion to take it. He can now let it go.

“
I got screwed.”

“
Great.” A voice responds to Dan’s statement. “Aren’t you supposed to wait six weeks before that sort of thing?”

It’s Bruce again. He is at the door with a stack of clothes, without Jack this time.

“
Suit up, stud.” He drops the clothes onto a recliner that sits in the corner of the room. “You have to get back in the game.”

25

Bruce had left Dan to get dressed. He hates having to leave his wife and this cozy, warm room to go back out into the cold. Dan walks to the nightstand by the bed and retrieves a few things he took from his uniform pockets before his shower.

“
You still carry that locket?” Heather asks.

“
Of course. It’s good luck.” Dan says slipping the small piece of plastic into his pocket.

“
Did you have it with you on the bridge?” She asks, smiling.

“
Yes.” He replies in her same tone, knowing what she means by it. “I’m not dead, am I?”

“
I wish you could stay in bed with me.” His wife says as she watches him put his shirt on. Her face is on the pillow, one brilliant green eye follows him around the room.

“
Me too, but I’m sure what needs to be done, needs to be done.”

“
It does.” Bruce appears again. “What’s keeping you?”

“
I will be out in a minute.” Dan protests like a child.

“
Fine. Meet me out back in one minute.” Uncle Bruce leaves again. His voice trails down the hall as he mutters to himself. “Kid blows himself up and he expects some sort of special treatment.”

“
He’s so funny.” Heather giggles.

“
Yeah.” Dan says noncommittally.

“
It means he likes you.” She assures.

Dan figures that. It just doesn’t feel like it sometimes. His dad and Bruce are awful to one another; neither can say nor do anything without the other attacking with their razor sharp tongues. They cut each other down with sarcasm and jokes. Two peas of the same pod. They love it. It has to be their way of bonding because they always come back for more.

26

Dan isn’t sure what time he and Jack had arrived, or how long he had talked to Heather, but it is already getting dark when he walks out into the back yard. It feels weird to be out of his flak jacket. The heavy protective garment had really become a part of him.

In the back field Bruce is hitching a wagon to the back of his truck, a large animal trailer that he uses to take his livestock to the state fair every year. Dan notices it is empty of any animals.

“
You’re late.” Bruce says, looking at his watch as his nephew appears.

“
Sorry.” Dan says sheepishly.

“
You know they had a funeral for you yesterday?”

“
Yeah, Heather told me.”

“
You know what that means, don’t you?” Bruce doesn’t wait for a response. “You were late to your own funeral.”

Dan laughs through his nose.

“
Those clothes look good on you. They fit you well.” Bruce looks him over. “They look better on me of course.”

Dan wears jeans and a flannel shirt that belong to his uncle.

“
You look just like your old man.” Bruce says as he finishes hitching the trailer.

“
I was just thinking that.” Dan replies. An awkward silence falls between them. The two men stand there for a few seconds before Bruce makes the first move and enters the truck. Dan follows his example. The engine is started, without a word between them Bruce backs away from the barn.

“
So,” The older of the two says. “These things are pretty bad ass?”

“
Zombies? They’re slow and dumb, but in large numbers they are the scariest thing I have ever seen. They get strength from their insatiable hunger, and they can’t feel pain.”

“
Everyone says that no one knows what caused all this yet. Did you learn anything while you were in the thick of things?”

“
I noticed that extreme cold makes them even slower.” Dan says after giving his Uncle a quick recap of his experience.

“
That’s good.” Bruce nods. It looks to Dan like his uncle is nervous about something.
Bruce is never nervous.
“That’s really good. Do you think your dad is OK?”

“
I don’t know.” Dan hopes he is all right. He hasn’t even thought about that.
And, what about Heather’s family?
They have no way to get to everybody.

“
I think he is.” Bruce nods again. “He’s like us, a fighter.”

“
No doubt about that.” Dan agrees. Wallace Williamson is an even bigger man than Bruce. Dan has to believe he and his mom are fine. The men in the truck slide into that awkward silence again. Bruce breaks it first, seeming to want to move the subject to a different track.

“
You know what I think it is?” Bruce asks. “Preservatives.”

“
Preservatives?” Dan isn’t quite convinced.

“
Yeah, you know the shit that keeps food… Well, food. It’s in pretty much everything. I think that stuff is to blame. It has built up so much in our bodies that it has ingrained in our DNA.”

“
I doubt it.” Dan shakes his head. It seems everybody has a theory on what started this and he hates to dismiss anyone’s, but this is one he has to shoot down.

“
Let me tell you a story before you disregard my thoughts out of hand like that. I have my ranch, many animals, and I like to grow stuff.” The truck is leaving the front gates.

“
A while back I decided I wanted to go organic. I would grow everything without pesticides and hormones. I would only eat fresh foods. I figured it was the way nature had intended and it would shut my doctor up for a while. I planned to start with something small, an all-natural hamburger. I found a recipe to make the buns and grew all the ingredients myself. I even grew the ingredients to make ingredients. I learned how to make my own cheese. I raised and slaughtered the cow without artificial growth hormones. I even made my own bacon for this experiment, because sometimes I like bacon on my burger.

“
I was all set. I was grilling the beef and frying the bacon. The cheese I made melted beautifully. I had all the fixings and they were all natural. My lettuce was as crisp as an autumn leaf and my tomato as firm as a virgin’s ass. It was all going perfect, until it happened.”

“
What happened?” Dan has to ask because Bruce had stopped his story with a dramatic pause and must have forgotten to un-pause himself
. That, or he wants it to be very dramatic.

“
Condiments.” Bruce enlightens his nephew.

“
Condiments happened?”

“
The burger was built. All I had to do was add my condiments. I realized they came from bottles and jars. The ketchup, the mustard, the mayo, and the relish.”

“
Relish on a burger?” Dan asks.

“
You’re missing the point. You can be as natural as you want, but somewhere along the way the preservatives will get you.”

“
Couldn’t you just make your own condiments?” Dan poses the question.

“
Who the fuck knows how to make ketchup and mustard? Mayo is easy; it’s just eggs and oil. Even though I wanted to go all-natural, I wasn’t about to start making my condiments. See?”

Dan doesn’t see, it doesn’t really explain how preservatives became part of our DNA. He contends one point to the old man. “Preservatives are everywhere.”

“
Exactly.” Bruce taps the steering wheel with his hand for punctuation.

“
So, what’s our mission?” Dan wants to change the subject, and he’s also curious, mostly the latter. Bruce’s burger tale made his head hurt.

“
We’re going to go to the neighboring farms. If we want to eat, we’ll need animals.”

“
I thought you had animals.” Dan says.

“
I do. Not enough. We will need to breed them so we have a renewable resource, and to do that we need to deepen the gene pool. We have to acquire the beasts of burden now before they all starve to death.”

Dan leans back, resting his head on the rifles that are secured in Bruce’s gun rack.

“
Don’t scuff my guns.” Bruce warns. Behind Dan are two of Bruce’s favorites.

“
Which one is mine?”

“
Neither. If you didn’t come prepared that’s your problem.” Bruce reaches in front of Dan and opens the glove compartment. Dan can see his nickel plated 9mm. “You get the girly gun. All your others are now stored in my study. I don’t want people walking around my house armed unless we need them. Lindsey is the exception. I let her keep her hubby’s muzzleloaders. The ammo is stashed though.”

Dan is feeling drowsy. The nearest neighbor to his uncle is five miles away. Bruce drones on about guns.

“…
That stripper had an AK-47. Very sexy.”

“
Who?” Dan asks.

“
The girl who arrived after you. I didn’t recognize her at first with her clothes on. She dances… Well, she used to dance at the Flag Pole. It’s where all the vets go around here. It’s such a shame that place is gone. It had so much history. I remember this one time…”

Dan nods off once more only to jolt awake again when the truck comes to a stop. They are parked in the driveway of a large farmhouse. Dan can see under the light of the stars from the clear sky, animals roam about in the snow-covered field.

“
Here we are. We’ll just drive up and grab as many of the smelly critters that we can carry.” Bruce reveals the game plan while turning his truck around in the back yard of the property so they face the street again. He slowly guides the trailer up to the fence that contains the livestock. “Looks like we can do it in 3 trips; Cows and sheep first, then we can raid the coops, and that bull will need to ride alone. He is the lynch pin in all this.”

“
Shouldn’t we see if there are any survivors inside first?” Dan asks.

“
No, these people are old. Practically dead already.”

“
I’m still checking first.” Dan adamantly states.

“
Fine. I’ll cover you.”

Dan exits the vehicle. Bruce opens his door and pulls his Winchester off the gun rack. The old man slides part of the way off his seat so he can aim his trusty, lever action rifle towards the door.

“
Tuck your gun away.” Bruce tells Dan. “If old Frank is alive he’ll blow your head off if he sees you’re packing.”

Dan slides the pistol into his pants as he nears the door. The trailers taillights paint the side of the house with a red glow. Dan knocks. After being able to relax for a while it’s difficult for him to enter into the same old situations. His muscles thrum with tension as he waits for the unknown.