Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse (Book 1): Sanctuary (11 page)

“Oh,
look,” said Briana, “even more beans, stashed under the sink. Can’t have enough
of those. Found some sunglasses on top the fridge as well. They look new.”

“Might
be useful. Keep them if you want.”

“What I
really want is a bath.” She hit the faucet, but nothing came out. “No water.”

“There
was that rain barrel. It was full and warm, has to be with the temp outside.
It’s probably clean enough for a sponge bath. You can go first.”

Hauling
in bucket after bucket, I waited, in the dark, while Briana took her time
getting washed up by lantern light. There wasn’t much water left by the time my
turn came, and I didn’t like being exposed, even in a tiny bathroom with the
door locked. As a result, I took a whole lot less time than Briana, but it did
feel good to get the dirt and stink off.

The
night was spent in the Jeep. With only the two of us we didn’t feel safe
sleeping in the mobile home, nor did we particularly want to spend any
additional time with the thirty or forty thousand roaches that had taken up
residence. But, before closing our eyes, Briana and I watched a movie on my
laptop. That was becoming something of a nightly ritual, and it helped take our
minds off certain things.

*
* *

Briana
insisted on driving the next day. I wasn’t particularly keen with the idea –
she was a teenager, and I remembered how I drove when I was in the same
dreadful age range – but I didn’t have any valid grounds to argue. Also, it
would be nice to be able to close my eyes occasionally without worrying about
crashing, so after a brief reminder about not hitting holes or going off road
too fast – she rolled her eyes at me the entire time – I relinquished the
driver’s seat.

Overall,
she did a good job. Briana didn’t hurt my Jeep and didn’t hit anything. I was
forced to request she stop a few times so we could siphon gas and refill the
tank before it dropped below half empty. Her opinion was that we could go
further, but I was adamant about not getting stuck somewhere on foot. Being
unable to drive away from danger was an upsetting concept and a situation best
avoided.

And,
much like Briana, I spent the majority of my time in the passenger seat going
through the road atlas, trying to calculate how long until we reached the
Nebraska National Forest. That was our goal, finally decided on. It was a
planned forest, having been planted by the government decades ago as part of an
experiment to boost lumber production on the plains. The trees took, so you had
the grasslands with their cattle and buffalo – those were bound to get loose
and multiply – along with some prime agricultural land right next to the forest
itself. There was lumber, food, everything we would need. Best of all, there
were no major cities anywhere for hundreds of miles, and the few towns in the region
were widely scattered.

There
should be tons of corn, wheat, and other crops ready for harvest in a few
months. With a little work we would be able to store up plenty for winter. The
next few years should be just as good. With the plants everywhere, quite a few
would sprout naturally next spring, and so on for years to come. It would, of
course, be far more efficient and productive to set up a real farm, but even if
events prevented that, we should still be able to gather a tremendous amount of
food for the foreseeable future.

In
addition to the beef, bison, and other farm animals, there would also be plenty
of game in the area. There were mountain goats and sheep north in the Black
Hills. Those would expand south, maybe. I wasn’t sure actually, but getting to
them was easy enough. There were pronghorns, bears, deer, elk, and a wide
assortment of other tasty things in the Wyoming and Montana region, and those I
knew would soon spread out, now that humanity wasn’t around to cull their
numbers. And, as always, there would be no shortage of rabbits.

*
* *

We woke
the following morning to find a group of zombies uncomfortably close to the
Jeep. It was the thirteenth day of the apocalypse, so that was somehow darkly
appropriate.

“Jacob.”

“What is
it?” I mumbled.

“Get up
and look.” Briana shook my shoulder, then again, harder.

“What?”
I opened my eyes and gazed about blearily. “Oh.”

The damn
things were shambling about the field where we’d parked. It appeared to have
been corn originally, but a fire had gone through a few days earlier leaving
just blackened ground. We had a good view of the area though, so we stopped for
the night, a few miles outside of Garden City, Kansas.

“Hey,”
she said, pointing, “there are some cows too.”

I looked
to the side. Sure enough, there were a half dozen rooting around in the ashes
looking for something to eat.

“The
zombies are pretty far off, so I’m taking a potty break.”

“Potty
break?” asked Briana. “Are we regressing or something?”

“Fine. I
am going to urinate on the ground before my bladder explodes, or take a piss if
you like the term more.”

She
smirked as I got out of the Jeep and stretched, taking a quick survey of the
area to make sure it was safe before unzipping. The dead didn’t seem to notice
me, even though they were less than a mile away, a half mile maybe.

Briana
joined me a moment later. “Keep watch, and turn around.”

With a
dramatic sigh – I couldn’t help myself – I did as she requested. I also made a
comment regarding the superiority of men when it came to taking a leak without
having to squat. A moment later I was hit in the back with a clod of dirt.

“They
still far off?”

“Yeah,”
I said. “They’re moving a bit to the side, not really coming closer. Want to
eat something before we get started? I bet revving the engine gets their
attention, so if you want a short break without interruption we should do it
now.”

“They do
seem to hear better than they see,” agreed Briana.

We ate a
dull breakfast consisting of beans – we really did have a lot of those – and
some canned tuna. It could have been better, and I decided to try for another
rabbit later that day. Strange how quickly I was moving into hunting mode after
spending my life avoiding the activity. Finishing up, we started the Jeep, and
sure enough the zombies swiveled toward us. I was driving past them, heading
for the road, when Briana stopped me.

“Check
out their feet.”

“What
about them?”

“The
barefoot ones.”

I hit
the brakes and carefully looked as they approached us. I waited until the last
moment before touching the accelerator and leaving them behind.

“Their
feet were normal,” I said, disturbed.

“Shouldn’t
they be in tatters after walking about without shoes for two weeks? I mean,
they step on hot concrete, they step on broken glass, these walked all over a
burnt out field. It’s like they’re indestructible or something.”

“Not
that. They fall fast enough if shot, but maybe their skins are tougher than
when they were alive or maybe they heal little things almost immediately.” Both
possibilities sucked. “And why is it you’re the one to notice these things and
not me?”

“Cause
I’m smarter than you are and pay more attention.” She shook her head. “Bad no
matter what.”

*
* *

We drove
in silence for a few miles, until we reached Garden City, Kansas. It was large
enough that I didn’t feel comfortable passing through the center of town.
Fortunately, there were plenty of agricultural roads in the area, and we could
easily bypass the place and pick up the highway again just north of it.
However, this plan was put on the back burner when we spotted a convoy
approaching. They were coming down a side road, skirting the town more closely
than we’d intended, in clear view of anyone or anything who bothered to look.

“What do
you think?”

“I think
we should talk to them,” answered Briana.

That was
an awful lot of vehicles, and likely people, but she was right. I moved the
Jeep to the side and angled it so we could shoot across a field if need be.
Most of the cars approaching us were everyday ones and would have no chance of
following. I know it was somewhat paranoid, and other than the one fruit job
shooting at us back in Oklahoma we’d had no negative experiences with other
survivors. Even so, I wanted to be prepared.

The
convoy coming down the other side of the road slowed and stopped. A few kids
darted out of cars with their parents shrieking for them to be careful, and I
relaxed. Children were a potential sign that these folk were civilized, if not
outright friendly.

“Where
you all from?” asked a man with a full beard. He was wearing plaid, and I
immediately thought of lumberjacks.

“Texas,”
replied Briana sweetly.

“We’re
heading that way.” He brightened considerably. “Joan, get out here and talk to
these people.”

A woman
joined him, along with a few others. Some were wearing guns, but none seemed
ready to draw. Joan had a big map in one hand, and I motioned at the hood of my
Jeep. She quickly spread it out, using some rocks to hold the edges down. It
was pretty windy, but they did the job.

“What’s
the best road to take?” she asked.

“Say
hello first,” snarled the man. “Ignore my cousin’s bad manners. She was raised
in a barn.”

I
laughed. “It’s okay. I’m Jacob. This is Briana.”

“I’m
Stan. We’ve been having a hard time of it, so do try to ignore the manners.” He
was glaring at the woman.

“Lots of
that going on,” said Briana, “pretty much everywhere we’ve been.”

“Can’t
be as bad as up north.” Stan shook his head. “Nah, I don’t mean that, but we
had a bad run of it, really bad, lost lots of people getting out, picked up
some more, and then lost a bunch again just getting here.”

“Where
are you from?” I asked.

A few
more of his companions wandered over toward us, but most were taking the chance
of a break to stretch their legs or sort through their belongings. Some even
began to eat.

“Me and
Joan were up in Minneapolis when this started. We tried to stay in the city at
first, thinking the lights would come back on, that someone would sort things
out. It went bad right off, so after a while we found some neighbors and made a
run for it. A lot got killed. We got stuck a few times on the roads,
obstructions or weather, and had the damn zombies get right up to our cars.” He
paused. “That was worse than the city. Eventually we made it all the way to
Omaha and found more people there. We lost half our group getting through that
hellhole. Found even more people after that. The interstates are full of
survivors moving about.”

“The
back roads are largely empty,” said Briana.

“We
noticed that, later than I like to admit. A lot less of the biters too. We took
those afterwards and ended up going all the way west to here instead of south
like we intended. Out of the way, I know, but it’s been easier traveling.”

“What’s
south?” I asked.

“Safety,”
said Joan, firmly and with complete conviction.

Briana
snorted, and the older woman shot her a nasty look.

“Be a
bit more specific please,” I requested, “and let me say that the Dallas-Fort
Worth Metroplex is certainly not safe. Granted, we were on the far northern
fringe when we left, but those suburbs were lost from the start. A good portion
of our town went up in flames.”

“Yeah,”
said Stan, “Minneapolis was the same. Oh, there were parts with plenty of
people alive who were setting up forts or something, but the number of zombies
was just too much for us to risk it. I figure the other big cities are similar.
Omaha was. We’d seen fires too. None in Minneapolis, but we just had rain. Some
in other places.”

“We’ve
found one small town that was rebuilding.”

I told
him about Edwin and his people. Joan eagerly marked the location and the route
we’d taken on her map. I also pointed out the stretches where they would have
to push cars out of the way, construction equipment possibly, in order to get
their vehicles through.

“We’ll
stop there,” said Stan, “if only to see other people. It’s on our way besides.
Maybe they’ll join us going south. Safety in numbers. You’re welcome too.”

“We’re
moving north actually.”

He
nodded. “We met a lot who did that, headed right up into Canada.”

“We
don’t want to go quite that far,” said Briana. “I sorta like the snow, but
there’s limits.”

“I can
see the appeal. The countryside in Canada tends to be empty of everything, once
you get past the southern cities. There would be fewer zombies, definitely, at
least at first. They keep spreading out.”

“We’ve
noticed that too,” agreed Stan. “Roads have been getting worse. The ones by the
cities are full of them.”