The Dead Divide Us (Book 1) (16 page)

“People, for the sake of this town, please remain calm at all times. The Mayor and Sheriff Baxter are doing all they can to keep us safe.” Roy started. But when he mentioned Sheriff Baxter, a few members of mob snickered in discomfort. Roy and Paul both took notice.

“Your brilliant Sheriff doesn’t want anyone leaving town. Don’t you feel trapped Roy?” Stan Hadley now asked in earnest, pushing his wire framed glasses up his nose.

Again, everyone fell silent. If they hadn’t considered themselves trapped in Green Falls before, now they most certainly did. Roy then finally spoke.

“I know the Sheriff can be pretty rash sometimes, hell almost all the time, but if we don’t stick together then we don’t stand a chance.” Roy said, and the crowd of people started to look a little more at ease.

“You’ll help us out, right Roy? You always have been here for us?” Stan Hadley asked, putting a final nail into Roy’s heart.

Roy loved his community. All of the work he put into making his neighbors feel comfortable, he took great joy in all of that. But times were different now, this was about survival.

Roy was lying to these people. He was going to leave Green Falls the first chance he got; bringing along with him only Paul’s family. It pained Roy greatly to speak to his neighbors about unity and sticking together till the end. But he had to throw them off. They were dead to him.

“Yes, of course. I’ll be here with you all.” Roy lied, surprising himself with his fake sincerity.

His words had a huge impact on the crowd. They began to speak to each other with confidence, joining forces and houses in the neighborhood to make a stand against whatever harm may come their way.

Paul knew Roy was lying to them all, but Glen and Warren had bought the story too; hook line and sinker.

“Roy, we can make this whole block a fortress! Set up perimeters and guards on all shifts.” Warren stated, with great excitement.

“I’m sure if we combine our supplies, ration food, we can hold up for a while against this shit!” Glen added.

Roy looked at Paul, and Paul saw just how sick this was making him. Paul decided to take advantage of Glen and Warren’s plan of action.

“Glen, why don’t you start organizing the supplies and food? How many houses do we have here at the end of our street?”

“Nine houses here. I‘ll have Marge and the kids help me.” Glen responded.

“Perfect.” Paul said, and then turned his attention to Warren.

“And why don’t you start to seek out the best hunters in the crowd and put together a little group of people who can stand guard. Make sure they are safe with their weapons though, we don’t want anyone guarding a post that doesn’t respect their firearm.” Paul said to Warren.

“Shit, I already know a few folks who I want to put on my team. And I was National Guard for over three years. I’ll train these sons of bitches right!” Warren said with great pride. Paul looked back at Roy again. He was still speechless. Roy needed to get away from the crowd of neighbors, the group of people who still believed he was being honest with them.

Paul turned around to the enthusiastic crowd and shouted.

“Ok, listen up. Glen and Warren are going to be in charge of setting up guard posts and combining our efforts for food and supplies. So you all need to check in with them. The sooner the better.” Paul then grabbed Roy by the arm and started to lead him through the crowd, toward his home.

It was as if Roy was speaking to them the whole time, not Paul. As they pushed forward, people were thanking Roy for helping them. Roy just put on a fake smile as Paul rushed him through.

Paul had reached the front door and the crowd was now behind them, Glen and Warren were already taking charge in their duties. They had already split the crowd into two groups and leading them in separate directions, each for their own task at hand. Ruth and Kirsten quickly opened the front door from inside; they had been watching the outside events the entire time from the window.

“Come on, get inside!” Ruth said.

Paul helped Roy go through the front door first. Inside now, he began to close the door, but he noticed that Stan Hadley was still standing on Roy’s driveway. He was looking directly at Paul, and he was not moving away in the direction of the crowd. Stan stared at Paul with a cautious eye.

Was Stan Hadley onto them? Did he see through their lies?

Paul slammed the door shut, locking himself and his family away from the madness of the outside world. He then reached in his pocket and pulled out his cell phone.

3

Paul stood just outside of Roy’s living room; his two sons leapt off the couch and came running over to him. The inside of the house was dimly lit in the grey afternoon; they felt no urge to turn any lights on. In the dark they would stay. Roy felt more comfortable that way, keeping his face barely visible.

Shawn was overtly glad to see his father return, as was Eddie but he did a much better job of hiding his excitement. Eddie was after all, still trying to act strong through everything. Ruth had hugged Paul immediately as he entered the house, and she was still hanging onto him from behind.

“That crowd outside just formed so quick! We didn’t know if we wanted to open the door or not.” Ruth said, as Shawn crashed into Paul’s legs, hugging them tightly.

“Daddy!”

“You did the right thing, that crowd outside was one step away from an angry mob.” Paul said, now hitting the call button next to his brother Robert’s name in his cell phone.

“What are you doing?” Roy asked. He sulked down on his large grey sofa chair. His wife Kirsten was next to him, sitting on the arm of the chair and Alexis was standing near him holding his hand. Roy was still white as a ghost, still partially frozen from willingly turning his back on this community.

“I’m calling Robert.” Paul said and everyone became silent.

Paul heard a brief moment of static noise before the call started to finally ring. But he could tell the connection was awful, the static only became worse and each of the rings sounded distorted. Then finally Robert picked up.

“Paul…”

“Rob! Hey, are you okay? How are Mom and Dad?” Paul asked, very glad to hear Robert was alive.

“Paul…”

The connection was getting worse by the second. It now sounded like a dust storm was wiping through the cell phone speaker.

Paul could only make out these final words:

“Paul…listen….Mom………..Colton…” then the connection was lost.

What was he trying to tell him? Could Robert even hear Paul? He mentioned their mother, so maybe he did get them to safety.

“Shit!” Paul muttered.

“What is it?” Ruth asked, eagerly.

“The damn connection broke up, it’s lost.” Paul said, as he began to try and redial. But to his dismay the cell phone no longer had any service. This was never a problem with his phone before.

“Roy, I don’t have any service here. Can I use your house phone?”

“Of course, go ahead.” Roy said, pointing to the cordless phone sitting on the end table next to the couch.

Paul quickly picked up the phone, it clicked on, and he began to dial Robert’s number. But something was wrong; it didn’t feel right to Paul. He hung up the phone on the receiver and then picked it up again. There was no dial tone.

“Roy, you don’t have phone service.” Paul said, in disbelief. Ruth and Kirsten both gasped out loud.

“No way.” Roy said as he walked over to the phone. He tried it too, getting the same result as Paul.

“Paul’s right. The phone is out.”

Roy walked back across the room to his family.

“Alexis, why don’t you take Shawn and Eddie downstairs to the den and put on a DVD?” Roy asked. “I’d like to have a word with just us grownups.”

“Um, okay,” Alexis said, but she sounded very worried.

“Go ahead guys; we’re just going to chat for a few minutes.” Ruth told both of her sons and then patted them on the back.

“But Mommy,” Shawn protested, as he followed Alexis and Eddie downstairs. Alexis, Shawn and Eddie walked past the large television in the living room and opened the basement door located in the back hallway. They still had the television on, but it was still only playing old news, literally still the same segments from earlier that morning.               “We’ll only be a few minutes.” Roy said as he closed the basement door behind the kids.

“What are we going to do?” Kirsten asked Roy.

Roy and Paul shared a look, they had already known they had to leave town.

“We gotta go. We gotta go to the cabin. If we stay around here, we will all die.” Roy said, with great certainty.

“Not that cabin!” Kirsten said.

“Honey, I just had to lie to everyone out there! Everyone in his neighborhood, they think, no they
expect
me to help them out. I can’t do it. It’s impossible.” Roy said, he sounded like he was getting a little too close to the edge. Paul had never seen him like this.

“Hold on, what was said at the town meeting? Why is everyone here so god damn hectic now?” Ruth asked. Paul then gently grabbed her hand.

“We found out that the virus has reached Denver.” Paul said carefully. “Principal Wyatt had family there, and it’s all over the city apparently.”

Ruth’s eyes slowly dropped down to the floor and became filled with tears.

Was there any hope left for her family in Wisconsin? She knew she couldn’t reach them anymore; she had been trying to call all morning. Au revoir ma Mere et mon Pere.

“I’m sorry.” Paul said to his wife.

“So you see; the disease is making its way here. The populated areas are getting crushed by it. We need to isolate ourselves. The mountains are our only hope.” Roy said.

“We don’t have supplies. Food, water, clothing. It’s going to be extremely cold up there!” Kirsten said.

“You ladies need to salvage anything you can from both our houses. Start packing up the food and clothing. Paul and I will have to make a trip to Gus’s Hardware store.”

“Ammunition?” Paul asked.

“Yes. I’ve always had Gus order my shotgun shells and rifle ammunition. And he won’t sell my ammunition to anyone but me. It’s probably a good idea for you to pick up as much ammo as you can for your nine millimeter too.” Roy said.

Paul walked out of the living room, with his hand on top of his head. He was thinking.

“Guys, how are we going to get out of here? This neighborhood will be on us like flies on shit.” Paul asked.

“We’ll just have to continue to lie to them.” Roy said abruptly and cold.

Just then a loud knocking was heard at the front door.

“Shit, already.” Paul said.

“No one said this was going to be easy. Not one word about the cabin, ok?” Roy whispered, as he went to the door. Roy peeked out of the small window and looked back shaking his head in disapproval. Then he slowly opened the door.

“Sheriff. Nice to see you, come in please.” Roy said.

4

Seeing Sheriff Baxter was the last thing Paul wanted. He was already worried and filled with an overwhelming fear that they would never be able to safely leave Green Falls. He just wanted to protect his family and he knew he had to get them as far away from the high populated areas as possible. Paul wanted to be in control. Paul wanted to be the one with authority over his destiny. Sheriff Baxter now literally stood in his way.

“What can we do for you Sheriff?” Kirsten asked, now playing the cover-up game as well. But Sheriff Baxter only stood there in the threshold of the front door not saying a word and he did not enter. . Paul thought he looked angry, but then again Sheriff Baxter always looked angry.

“Would you like some coffee?” Kirsten asked, awkwardly.

Again, Sheriff Baxter did not answer. He only stood there staring; studying the four of them over.

“Please come inside, Sheriff.” Roy asked.

“Are you ok?” Paul finally said to the Sheriff. The Sheriff slowly turned his head toward Paul.

“Who is the fucking Sheriff of this town?” Sheriff Baxter asked harshly.

“Uh, you are.” Paul said.

“I am!? Oh that’s funny, cuz it don’t remember putting those two halfwits in charge of anything.” Sheriff Baxter said, now definitely proving he was angry.

“Glenn and Warren? They are helping organize these people. And they are more than able to do what they were told.” Paul said.

“What gives you the authority to tell anyone what to do!?” the Sheriff lashed out directly at Paul.

“What gives
you
the authority?” Paul fired back.

Ruth noticed how ugly this situation was getting. Soon it was going to go from a conversation to a confrontation. She grabbed Paul and pulled him back toward the living room. Sheriff Baxter was now extremely furious, Roy was holding him back at the doorway.

“I’m onto all of you sons of bitches! I know you are running!” the Sheriff yelled.

“That’s not true Sheriff, and you are out of line here.” Roy said, sternly.