Seeking Sanctuary (Walkers) (3 page)

.     “He's around someplace.  He said something about checking the solar panels on the Dukemobile  So if you're looking for him that's probably where he is.”

     “OK, I'll check with him before we leave.”  I turned to Mason and asked, “When are we leaving cause I can be ready anytime?”

     “I thought we were going horseback riding while the other team went to town.” He almost sounded like he was going to cry.

     “Not any more.  I want to go to town so that's what I'm doing.  You can go riding if you want to.” 

     “But what about the panther?  I thought we'd go hunting for it today.”

     “I'm sure everyone here knows how to handle a gun.  If they see it they can shoot it.  From what I've heard they're night hunters anyway, so no one will probably see it anyway.”  I got up and started for the door when he grabbed my arm.  I turned on him fast.  “You will not touch me again unless I touch you first.  You will not sleep next to me again unless I ask.  Until I'm over being mad at you, and I have no idea how long that will be, you will keep your distance and I'm so serious about this that you don't even want to cross me.  Do. You. Understand?”  I didn't wait for a response but continued out the door and headed to the Dukemobile

     We found the Dukemobile in Colorado and Duke fell head over heels for it the moment he saw it.   It was around 30 feet long with pretty purple swirls that roamed up and down its side.  The front bumper was triangular and the headlights were recessed. The grill was extra large and hung over the front bumper while the windshield looked like a five foot compact disc hanging over the front of the vehicle and just on top of the grill.  The tandem rear end was closed in and the whole thing looked like it came from another planet.  Oh, and lets not forget the observation deck on the roof, the three tip outs and the inside, which had enough electronics to send a space ship to the moon.  What cinched the whole thing were the words 'Communication/Command Center Larimer County' written in large letters on the side.  The steps leading the the inside were covered in red carpet Duke had gotten somewhere making me smile every time I went inside.

   “
Hey, Duke, we're going to town soon, you have a list of stuff you want this time?” He was at the big 10 foot long desk working on something and looked at me sideways before going back to working.  “Yea, it's on that board there next to the door.  You look better since you shaved.”  I flipped him the bird, grabbed the list and stomped outside to wait on the team going to town.  It was a very quiet group that left  that morning.  The guys knew me well enough to leave me alone.  Mason tried several times to read my mind but the vault I had around my mind refused to let him in.  He finally settled in the bunk behind me.  Eventually he planned to stay close until I indicated he was forgiven.  Until then there would be no monkeying around. 

    
Pun intended.

             
                                 
Chapter 3

              A few hours later found us up to our armpits in walkers.  I don't know how it happened, the guys said they'd cleared the  small gun shop, but here we were, climbing the walls again.  Literally.             

     I was standing on top of a cabinet on one side of the room, just out of reach of grasping hands.  Across the room from me on the opposite wall, each standing on the top of a steel gun vault, was Mason and Andy.  Andy looked like he was about ready to die of fright as he plastered himself against the wall and panted.   I was catching my breath while I contemplated how to get out of this new mess.  I looked at Mason who just shrugged his shoulders while we looked at the mass of stinking, rotting bodies below straining to reach us.  The rest of the crew was locked in the back room and since I had no telepathic connections to any of them, I had no way of knowing what they were doing.  I hoped someone came up with something soon, this was simply not acceptable.

     We'd decided to hit the gun store barely minutes before entering it.  Clint or was it Randy, said it was clear, so we were happily grabbing what we could when Andy let out a squeal, that I'm sure he will be embarrassed about for the rest of his life.  He pushed the walker away with enough force that it fell, and then that 14 year old was up on the gun safe before I could really process it.  Mason followed suit and after I did a quick spin around looking for a place to hide,  I climbed the shelves next to me on the opposite side of the room.  I yelled to the guys in the back of the store who saw the horde and slammed the door.  Next thing we knew there was a crowd of walkers divided on each side of the room stinking up the place.

   
The slight breeze coming in the doorway swept the smell upwards right under my nose.  I felt bile rising in my stomach and swallowed continuously while I tried to ignore the raised hands reaching for me.  The combination of rotting flesh, unwashed bodies in the 90 degree heat and foul breath was so alien I couldn't describe it.  While I tried to look calm and remain still, I happened to noticed one of the walkers at the back of the herd that just watched me.  He didn't strain forward against the wall of bodies in front of him like the rest were doing, but just watched.  I looked at Mason then motioned towards the walker in the back of the horde.
See that guy in the back?  He isn't like the rest of them.  He's just watching.

     He looked and then grew very still as he turned his whole attention on the guy.  He reminded me of the time when me and Lacy was being chased by a herd of senior citizen walkers in northern Florida.  Just because they're seniors don't mean they're slow by any means, but I noticed a lot of them would just stare at you, like this guy was.  I have no idea why, Lacy and I tried to think of reasons for this but we finally decided it was the age of the walker before dying the first time that mattered.  Still, this one, who looked to be around 60 when he first died, acted differently and  in a group like this it was just plain spooky. 
I have no idea why he's acting that way as long as he does it over there. 
I   could always count on Mason to be pro active.  Bless him.   .

     I felt my shelving unit start to get a little shaky so I scooted the day packs off the next unit and shuffled over to it.  I decided to be as still as possible to calm the diners while I racked my brain to come up with some way of getting them out of the building. I noticed the guys across me were having some problems with their footing also and were trying to settle into another position when a loud horn sounded somewhere close.  They froze too, then I saw Riley hurry across the street and throw a grenade.  I wanted to duck down but I was trying to get the walkers attention off of me.  The explosion did a wonderful job of it though.  They all froze, then turned as one body and started out the door, the watcher walker at the head of the pack.  I saw a long, piece of glass sticking out of its back when it led the others out.  Mason and Andy hadn't seen Riley and had no idea what happened but as luck would have it, froze when the grenade went off and stayed that way when the walkers started out the door. 

     Another explosion, this one farther away, had the herd turning right and disappearing out of sight, letting me move.  I sat down on the top shelf among the dust mites, and dangled my legs over the side while I rested my head against the wall.  I was gasping large, lungs full of air with each breath but I didn't think I was having an asthma attack, just nerves.  I saw Andy's legs weren't  doing much better and when I looked at him he smiled a bit and gave me one thumbs up.  I returned the gesture.

     Mason jumped down, then after a quick check out the door, motioned to me it was OK, and I jumped down.  My legs were too wobbly and I ended up on my butt.  Mason grabbed a large tarp and some duct tape and started covering the big picture windows part way up while I struggled to make my legs work.  We just needed to cover up the bottom parts so that someone standing on the other side couldn't see inside.  The walkers don't  jump up and down, although there was this one time a walker saw itself reflected in a window and went crazy.  I don't know how long it clawed at that window to get at its reflection.   I got bored watching.   Andy jumped down and helped him cover up the windows then pulled a display cabinet about eight feet high over to the doorway to keep out any more undesirables.  We'd been in the process earlier when the trouble started so it didn't take long to finish.

      While they were doing that, I staggered to the back of the room and let the boys out. When I opened the door about four guns came up and pointed at me.  Smiling at them I turned around and went back out to sift through all the merchandise on the floor. We'd made a mess in our hurry to climb the shelves.

     “Riley should be back any time.  He'll come back in through the back door.”  said Clint.  I nodded to let him  know I'd heard, then started putting the cans of  black powder in the cart we'd stolen from the parking lot. 

     I'd met Clint when we were living at the Lodge in Montana.  He had established a small colony of his own nearby with his wife Melody and their daughter, Clarissa.  They'd been picnicking with us the day the lodge was destroyed.  Their place was destroyed too, so we all banded together. 

     Riley returned after setting off two more grenades down the street.  He was all puffed up and full of himself but looked all dejected when no one paid him any mind.  He was married to my cousin Georgina or George as we all called her.  He was in the military unit at the nuclear facility when we rescued them.  Her and Ken was all I had left of blood relations and I'd become very fond of him. 

    I patted his shoulder and nodded to let him know he was appreciated and took the cart back to the door where I grabbed some gun belts and started filling them with ammo.  I don't know why this little store hadn't been hit before now.  There were enough militia and private citizens still alive that they should have cleaned the place out long ago.  The only reason I could come up with was the herd of walkers we encountered when we arrived.  In fact, we were so surprised about the amount of goods we found here, we ignored the possibility of trouble.  Live and learn. 

     There was so much good stuff in the little store that we decided to clean it out and come back another day to finish up the stuff on our lists.  We still had a little over ten days before we planned to leave so there was plenty of time.  Andy found a pallet jack in the back and we started using it for the bigger stuff. Guns and rifles of every description was removed from the walls and stacked on the pallet.  Rifle scopes, binoculars and spotting scopes followed suit.  Duffel bags were filled with knives, axes, compasses, canteens and gloves.  You never can have enough gloves. My favorite was a 40 MM U.S. Army Ammo Can filled with neat stuff like first aid kits, glow sticks, thermal blankets, ponchos, fire starters, can opener, mess kit and MRe's.  Each one weighed about 25 pounds so I left them to the big, muscular guys.  I let them carry the five gallon buckets filled with MRE's also.   I was busy admiring the crossbows.

     You wouldn't think that a small store would have so much stuff but by the end of the day we had a semi trailer full.  The back of the store was a small warehouse with merchandise stacked to the ceiling, so, of course, we had to empty it also.  We found that if you just took some stuff and planned to come back another day, when you returned the place was empty.  It was better to do it all at once and not have to fight off the crowds, like we did today.

     I was anxious to get back because I was nasty. I wasn't the only one, so I didn't feel too self conscious about it, still I stunk and was yucky.  I tried to ignore it the rest of the day but on our way home, the closer we got to the bath I had in mind, I felt nastier so  I bailed out of the truck head first in my rush for the hot springs and clean clothes. The guys would unhook the trailer near the entrance to the valley to be emptied a little at a time.  Then they were on their own with the baths.  I had a special place to get clean, a small two person pool in a secluded area out of sight of everyone.  There were three trees which shaded it and it was about six feet deep and surrounded by bushes, making it nice and cool in the hottest part of the day.

     It didn't take me long to shuck the clothes I'd worn and jump in.  The bottom was a bit warmer than usual but I ignored it and scrubbed myself raw.  I discovered some gunk in my hair that made me shudder so I paid special attention to shampooing.  I had a plastic tub that I kept a change of clothes and bath stuff in nearby.  It seemed I was always stripping and jumping in then wondering later how to get to the camper and clean clothes without being seen.  So the tub was kept ready and it was a good thing.  After I was pretty sure I was presentable to the general population and especially the kids, I relaxed in the pool and let the tensions of the day go away.  The picture of the staring walker, though,  was seared into my pupils and I was going to ask the guys about it when I returned to the cabin.

     I was anxious to look at my new crossbow.  I had a thing for the things. I'm not sure why, except they're fun to shoot.  I got a boatload of arrows or bolts and several buckets of tips.  I was a very happy camper to say the least.  The kids would start taking the survival kits to various places in the hills for backups.  I'd come up with the  idea in Montana to fill a trailer with additional emergency supplies just a month before we ended up needing them.  It had saved our butts when the lodge was destroyed.   There were three places here that would be used for backups just to be on the safe side.  I think the cliff dwellings was one but that was their cup of tea and I let them keep their secrets.  When we left to for Montana, they would need to feel as safe as possible and this was one way to accomplish that.