Plagued: The Midamerica Zombie Half-Breed Experiment (Plagued States of America) (6 page)

Fourteen

They drove slowly, creeping along the deserted highway, avoiding huge potholes, burning up diesel enough that Peske kept mentioning how close it was going to be. He kept saying they should stop again for the night, saying they might run out of fuel five to ten miles before they reached town. Tom wondered what kind of town they would find that had a gas station out here. Hank and Peske also argued about the zombies they’d seen. Not local. They both agreed on that. From the snippets of their conversation Tom overheard, they both came to the conclusion that those were all the zombies that escaped from Biter’s Hill. Tom hoped Rick hadn’t heard that. If that was the case, then most of them wouldn’t have been contagious. Rick might have felt worse for not tackling the front zombie and dragging Bill away. A few bites, some stitches mostly, wouldn’t hurt too badly in the grand scheme of things. Even the other two visitors could have helped.

Of course Tom knew it would have ended worse. All four of them would be dead or turned by now. Tom counted how many people were still left aboard the duck. From a town as big as Biter’s Hill, a place he knew had over five hundred men and women, only fifteen survivors and a half-breed. No, that was wrong. As far as survivors went, only those who were on the ferry officially made it out. No one knew about the duck. After the gunships, they must have written everyone else off completely. Tom wondered what the news corporations would be reporting on the incident, how they would spin it. It made him wonder if the government would have a vested interest in making sure none of them made it back. All the more reason to get to a long range radio, something that could reach the Districts directly.

The truck sputtered, acting like it would stall. Everyone glanced forward, even Tom. There was something altogether sinister about that sound. The engine was dying, gasping for fuel, lurching with each desperate breath. The argument had been going on for nearly two hours. Hank kept asking Peske why he didn’t have fuel. Peske claimed he never filled up until the day he left so no one would siphon his tanks. But regardless of their banter, the fact was that the duck was almost dead.

When the engine sighed its last breath, the vehicle went silent except for the crunching of its tires over the rubble-like highway.

“That’s why you don’t drive at night!” Peske groused loudly enough for everyone to hear. “If we could have waited for morning we would have reached the next town with five gallons to spare.” No one argued the point. Like Tom, they were all too busy wondering what they would do now. How far back were those zombies? The duck crept to a halt and Peske set the brake. “Get the siphon bar and pump down,” Peske said while pointing to some long rods on the roof racks. Rick didn’t hesitate to help with the task.

“What are you doing?” Tyler demanded frantically.

“Well,” Peske said irritably as he started unstrapping several empty three gallon fuel canisters off the roof of the cockpit. “Someone’s got to go ahead and get fuel for the duck, unless you want to walk the ninety-seven miles to Midamerica. I burned up most of my fuel plucking assholes like you out of the channel, so I think it’s fair that you be one of the assholes lugging these both ways.”

“What?” Tyler asked incredulously.

“You and four or five of your friends are going with Rick and Hank and his men to fetch some fuel. The more of you that go, the lighter your load will be on the way back. I’ve got ten empties. Figure it out.”

“I’ll go,” Tom said.

“Sit your ass back down,” Peske told Tom.

“Why? I want to go.”

“Not on your life,” Peske said. “Be a hero when we reach Midamerica. You’re staying here so they all come back. Otherwise, the first zombie they see they’ll hang us out to dry.”

Several arguments erupted all at once. Who would go, and why? The hunters and Peske kept at their tasks of preparing to walk ahead to look for fuel. They took down several zombie poles, flashlights, two canister guns, and Mike grinned as he opened a tackle box to find bolas. When everything was ready, Peske came into the circle of visitors and looked at his watch.

“You’ve got eighty minutes by my reckoning. That’s about how far ahead we are. Anyone who can’t jog two miles shouldn’t go.” Hank’s radio squawked as he tested it with the hunters. “These three will probably range ahead,”
Peske said to the visitors, pointing at the hunters. “Stay with Hank and keep your mouths shut.” Peske eyed Tyler as he said this. “We only need six gallons to get this thing running again, but we can’t come get you without ten or more, so at least three of you need to make it back.

“Good luck
, Hank,” Peske said, reaching a hand out to the other slaver.

“See you in an hour,” Hank said with a smile. “Come on you idiots,” Hank added, addressing the visitors. The three hunters were already over the side and picking up the siphoning equipment. Six of the visitors climbed over reluctantly, Tyler being the last. He glared at Peske before descending over the side.

“That idiot,” Peske said, snapping his fingers trying to remember his name.

“Tyler?” Tom offered.

“Yeah, that idiot Tyler needs to settle down or he’s going to get someone killed.”

Fifteen

Those remaining aboard the duck watched as the small group moved north into the darkness. Peske killed the lights on the duck from a switchboard at the front, and the generator engine rattled to a halt. The only light to split the darkness came from two battery lanterns. Hank’s group split into two with the smaller, faster team ranging ahead.

“They’re all dead, aren’t they?” one of the men that had been forced to ride in the dinghy during the escape said. His name was Steve. Carrie looked over at him and sighed, but didn’t answer. It was hard to argue with his assessment.

“They’ll be back,” Tom said. His encouraging words surprised even himself, but it felt more like his childhood in the park than some encroaching doom. Tom just needed to stick close to Peske and his half-breed. Penelope. Especially her. And besides, they weren’t very far from Biter’s Hill. Tom figured with the usual assortment of hunters in the area, there wasn’t a living zombie for fifty miles except for those that escaped the fire-bombing. “With fuel,” Tom added hopefully.

The noise of the forest wasn’t very loud to begin with this late at night. It was about two in the morning and even nocturnal animals weren’t moving about. Tom wondered if there were any left given the zombie thirst for meat. Nobody aboard slept and no one made much noise. Everyone just sat where they were, looking over the rail into the darkness, listening. The only one sleeping was Penelope. Tom walked past her cage, looking in closely to see if she really was asleep. He couldn’t tell. He took the seat next to Peske, the seat Hank had been occupying since their decision to drive north.

“I want to talk to you,” Tom said softly. Peske was sitting with his jacket over his arms like a blanket, head down, eyes closed, but not sleeping. Just resting.

“What about?” Peske asked, not looking up, his voice barely a whisper.

“I’m looking for someone,” Tom admitted. “A girl. A zombie girl. Turned ten years ago. I think your half-breed has seen her.”

“So what,” Peske mumbled.

“So I want to borrow your half-breed to go find her once we get to Midamerica.”

“Are you crazy, boy? She’ll cut your throat the moment you’re alone. She’s
from
Midamerica. She knows her place back on the Hill, and out here even. But the airbase, that’s where they live. She’d want back in.”

“They?” Tom asked.

“Yeah, them. Them like her. Half-breeds.”

“How many?”

“It doesn’t matter how many. They’re as scared of us as they are biters. But they have each other, and if you give her the chance to go back to that, she’ll slit your throat to have it.”

“I don’t agree,” Tom replied, even though he harbored doubts. “Look, when we get there, we’ll make the call and it will be an hour before a rescue team can reach us. Maybe longer. I just want to borrow her.”

“You’re not going anywhere with my half-breed,” Peske told him flatly.

“Fine, then I’ll buy her off you.”

“She’s not for sale.”

“Fifty thousand.”

“Not for sale,” Peske replied blandly.

“A Districts permit.”

Peske sat up in his chair, eyeing Tom suspiciously. “You ain’t got that kind of clout.”

“If your half-breed helps me find that girl, you have no idea the kind of clout I’ll have.”

“I ain’t letting you have Kitty.”

“Don’t you even know her real name?”

“Of course I do, boy,” Peske snapped, leaning into Tom’s face with a hard and angry stare. “You don’t think I don’t know everything about my little girl in there? I’ve had her for three goddamn years, boy. Tried to sell her back to her kin and they refused.” Tom straightened, confused by such a statement. Why would anyone refuse? ”Oh, you thinking you can be some kind of hero with her, too? They said she was dead to them already. Some parents, huh?”

Yeah, some parents, Tom thought. Not much different than how his own father would react. Not about Larissa, though. No, for her he would have paid. Or traded. Take one of my sons, his father would tell Peske, still bitter about losing Larissa in the first place. Take Tom. It was his fault in the first place.

“I still want her,” Tom told the old slaver. Screw his father. At least Tom could give her a life again, whether her parents wanted her back or not. At least he’d finally have a reason for being. “And I still need her help finding the girl.”

“Fine,” Peske said softly. “I’ll take your permit and your fifty thousand, and you get Kitty. But you don’t get Kitty until we leave. Wherever she goes, I go. Deal?”

“Deal,” Tom said, holding out a hand. Peske looked at it warily, glanced back toward the half-breed’s cage for a minute, then sighed. Tom hadn’t thought much of Peske up until then. The old slaver actually cared for Penelope, and not just as some valuable possession. “I’ll take care of her,” Tom added. “I want to help her.” Peske nodded, taking Tom’s hand.

Sixteen

Peske checked his watch at least every five minutes. It was the longest wait Tom had ever endured. He knew Hank and the hunters would come back. He knew they would bring fuel no matter what the cost. He just wondered if it would come at a cost, and how many this time. He didn’t like the idea of more people dying. It made him feel like their blood was on his hands. He had to keep reminding himself that all this would have happened whether he was here or not. Tom retreated from Peske’s co-pilot chair to sit on the side of the duck that overlooked the northern path by which the hunters had travelled. Like everyone else, he waited and watched, listening to the occasional noises of the forest.

Penelope chuffed behind him. He turned to look at her. Her hazy blue eyes were aglow in the moonlight. It was an eerie sight to say the least. She chuffed again, and he could swear she was trying to say “here”. He moved closer to her cage to listen better. She pointed at him, then toward the front of the boat and chuffed again, and he distinctly heard her say “here”.

“They’re here?” Tom asked. Penelope nodded. “The hunters?” Again she nodded. Tom stood and moved to the front of the boat, shaking Peske. “I think they’re here,” Tom said. Peske squinted into the darkness ahead.

“I don’t see anything,” Peske was saying, then there were two flashes clicked their direction. “Shit, that’s the sign,” Peske said, fumbling for a flashlight on the dashboard. He clicked it several times in the direction of the blinking light.

“Sign?”

“If we were overrun, we wouldn’t be able to sign them. They’d know to high-tail it back out of here.”

“You know, all these rules you and your zombie hunter friends take for granted would be good information for the rest of us. It might make that idiot Tyler a little less a thorn in our sides to impart your wisdom now and again.”

“Shut the hell up and help me with the flood lights,” Peske replied.

They were underway before any zombies appeared. Only four men came back with fuel, enough to get them into town. The other men were on the rooftop of the gas station, waiting. Peske drove in and they finished siphoning the underground tanks directly into the duck. They brought along all the extra fuel they could take with them and were on the road again cruising slowly through an old abandoned town. Cars were parked irregularly, some in spaces, others driven onto the sidewalks where they had been abandoned. The vehicles had all been vandalized to one degree or another. Tires taken, windshields, entire seats, hoods thrown open, light fixtures removed. Everything looked like it belonged in a salvage yard.

Leaving town they returned to the highway and continued north over a decaying road. The potholes and rough patches made their progress slow, but even Tom was able to lie down and sleep for a few hours while it was still dark.

Seventeen

Dawn brought them to the edge of a wide lake. It was ringed by a thick forest that had consumed an old town. Peske drove up to the water’s edge, a road that just led into the wide lake. He let the engine idle as he unfolded a map. Tom stretched and stood. His body was sore all over, his eyelids felt like sandpaper.

“What lake is this?” Tom asked the hunter Mike, who was standing behind Peske.

“Lake?” Mike replied. “That’s the old Mississippi River,” he said with a chuckle. Tom was just a boy when they diverted it, making the great flood wall around the Plagued States.

“No, you can’t take the highway east,” Peske was telling Hank. “Bridge collapsed.”

“West puts you through the washouts,” Mike put in. “We usually go straight across,” he added, pointing at the water. Hank looked up and saw the remnants of another town about three miles away on the other side of the lake.

“What about doubling back to here?” Hank asked, pointing out a junction they had passed earlier.

“We could try,” Peske said thoughtfully. “It’ll add two or three hours, and I don’t know where we’ll be able to ford the river.”

“Can’t we just put people in the rowboat again?” Hank asked.

“I told you,” Peske snarled “We broke the main float weeks ago. I’ve been stuck on the Hill waiting for a replacement. If we go out there, we’ll sink. We’re two hundred gallons heavier now than back at the Hill,” Peske said irritably. “Even if none of us were on board we’d sink. No, it’s either double back and hope for the best or try the washouts and hope for the best.”

“The washouts were pretty stable three months ago,” Mike offered. “I rode with Simon for a trip when you were sick, remember?”

“Oh yeah,” Peske said absently.

“There’s that old bridge at the creek between the two lakes,” Mike said, pointing toward the spot on the map. Tom peered over Peske’s shoulder and saw an old map of Illinois with several routes drawn out in red and with lots of notes, “x” marks, and new pathways dotted through places no roads had been before.

“Let’s give that a shot,” Hank said and Peske began folding the map. Tom turned around, expecting to sit down again. Tyler was hovering over his shoulder. Two other visitors and the hunter named Rick as well. Peske shoved the map into a glove compartment and spun around to back the duck up.

“What are you all doing up here?” Peske snapped. He looked up at Tom, who had raised his eyebrows and nodded toward Tyler. Peske sighed. “Look, everyone, we normally just drive straight across here, but with the main float broken, we’re too heavy. We’ll sink if we try. So we’re going around to the west where the hills washed out a few times and made a dam and a nice little creek crossing. That means there won’t be any roads to follow. But don’t worry. We’ll get through fine. There are plenty of old Jeep trails and lots of open space. Only a few forested areas where biters may be around, but they’ll be few and far between, so don’t go getting scared if you see any. They’ll just as likely be afraid of us. Let Mike or Rick or Dave know if you see one and for Pete’s sake, keep your asses on the deck. Alright?”

Tyler looked as though he wanted to say something, but instead nodded. Rick and Mike also nodded once with that grim expression that came with experiences such as these. Tom nodded appreciably when Peske looked back at him.

“Go sit your ass down,” Peske grumbled at Tom. The old slaver ground the duck into reverse and they shuddered back into motion. Tom didn’t gloat, and Peske hadn’t ceded, but both knew that everyone felt better for having the explanation.