The Dead Series (Book 3): Dead Weight (27 page)

When they reached the fence
, Heather pointed to the oil soaked bars spaced three inches apart and the six inch spikes at the top of them before saying, “That would be hard to cross even if you were alive.”

“But if there’s thousand
s of Z’s piling up against it with the ones from behind climbing over them…” Steve left the rest unfinished.

“Point taken,” Heather said.
“But maybe we could shore it up somehow?”

Steve shook his head
as he waved his arm to encompass the nine square acres the fence enclosed and replied, “It would be impossible, especially if what’s on the other side of Jasper decides to come this way.”

“Do you really believe
Grimm about there being a million Z’s over there?” She asked.

“A million is a number that gets thrown around too easily,” Steve told her.

She looked relieved until he added, “My guess is that it’s closer to twenty thousand.”

***

Several days ago, Brain had hooked up a CB they’d grabbed from an abandoned car after they left the railroad tracks. He’d also taken its whip antennae, and the first thing he’d done was to connect everything and try it. For days, as he and Connie bounced along in the truck, all they’d received was static. Steve had not allowed him to broadcast who they were or what their position was, since it might give some other highwaymen the idea to ambush them, so the mike remained hung on its hook.

He was more
optimistic now that they were near Fort Polk, but he knew the chances were slim they’d reach anyone since the distance was still too great. He was hoping someone would pick up his transmission and relay it. He’d done everything he could to boost the range by adding an inline amp and narrowing the band, but he realized the solution lie in finding a directional antennae. They’d come across one on a looted house when they were going through the preserve and had stopped to retrieve it. It stood at the very peak of the roof and it had taken him an hour to climb the three-story structure only to find it was so twisted and bent that it was useless. He ended up having to make do with the whip antennae. But now he had something else.

Height.

Shouldering his bag of tools and grabbing the CB, he headed for the stairs to the second floor with Connie in tow carrying the antennae. Grimm freaked him out with the whole Reaper thing, but he figured she was more approachable than the raggedy twins to ask how to get up on the roof. Of the fifth person in the crazy crew that populated the asylum, there was no sign. He knew that Igor did talk since he’d heard him call Cindy ‘the chosen one’ when they’d first met, but he had refused to speak since then and had fixated on Cindy.

At first
, Linda was scared for the child’s safety and kept shooing him away when he started following them around, until Grimm explained to her that Igor thought the little girl was the chosen one and had proclaimed himself her protector. When Pep seemed to take to him, Linda relaxed her guard but still kept Cindy by her side. She’d found out at an early age that she couldn’t have kids, so she had taken on the role of Cindy’s surrogate mother and loved every minute of it. She didn’t feel she was being overprotective, because the dead weren’t the only predators in the world.

As Brain trudged up the stairs, he remembered Grimm telling them that she would be in the recreation room on the second floor
if they needed her. When he reached the top, he found himself at the beginning of a long corridor. Discrete signs and a directory on the wall eventually led him to where he wanted to go. The door to the room stood open, so he peeked in to see if she was there.

He saw
couches and chairs clustered around a ping-pong table, and an arts and crafts area in the far corner.  Grimm was sitting in an overstuffed chair in a television area at the other side of the room with her scythe propped up next to her.

Knocking on the doorjamb, he asked, “Mind if I come in?”

“Bathe him, and bring him to me,” she said with an imperious tone in her voice.

Taking this as a yes, he motioned for Connie to stay in the hall
as he entered. Approaching the TV area, he could see it was a nice setup. There was a 60” widescreen on the wall hooked up to a DVD and a game system. None of it was turned on since the generator wasn’t running, but Grimm was staring at the television anyway.

“What are you watching
?” Brain asked with a nervous laugh.

“It’s a
Wonderful Life,” Grimm answered.

Brain laughed and started to say something, but she held up her hand and said, “
Shhh, this is a really good part.”

Brain closed his mouth with a snap as he realized that she
thought she was really watching something.

After a few minutes, Grimm picked up the remote
control, aimed it at the TV and pushed a button. She turned to him and said, “Okay, I can pause it here. Now, what can I do you out of? If you’re thinking about suicide, don’t do it. I did, and I ended up here.”

Slightly flustered, Brain stammered out, “Actually, I wanted to know how to get up on the roof.”

“I told you suicide shouldn’t be an option,” Grimm said.

Confused, Brain said, “
Oh no, not to jump, I need to set up an antenna.”

“
Mmmmm,” Grimm said thoughtfully. “I guess the best way would be to go through the attic access in the room at the end of the hall. Directly above it is a hatch that leads to the roof. They used to keep it locked, but I busted it open so I could get up there to enjoy the view and watch for my children.”

“Thanks,” Brain said.

“Da nada,” she replied before picking up the remote.

Brain considered
backing away but didn’t want to be rude. He turned and walked self-consciously back into the hall. Waving for Connie to follow him, they made their way to the door at the end of the hall.

When the mansion had been turned into an asylum, it had been remodeled into thirty, two person
dorms. Every two rooms shared a bathroom, and there were ten upstairs and five down. With only five inmates left, the newcomers could almost each have their own if they wanted. They split up into twos, since no one wanted to be alone, leaving almost half the huge house still empty. Grimm had told them that her room and the raggedy twins’ rooms were easy to tell by the doors, but the fifth person moved from room to room and never slept in the same spot two nights in a row.

Not knowing if anyone had picked this
room, Brain rapped his knuckles against the heavy steel door made to look like wood.

Hearing a muffled
, “What?” Brain groaned. He knew this voice well.

The door swung open
and there was Sean. Standing in his boxers with his hands on his hips, he gave an exasperated groan and asked, “What now? Are you here to get me to move something again? Lift the piano so you can vacuum under it?”

Bristling, Brain said, “I need to get on the roof so we can set up the radio and try to save your skank-ass, so get your pants on and get out of the way.”

Sean started to say something, but the look on Brain’s face stopped him. Grumbling, he did as he was told.

Despite the cold, dry weather they’d been experiencing, the attic area was hot
when Brain opened the access. He was relieved when he managed to flip the three-foot square metal hatch back on its hinges and it banged against the roof. Ignoring the view, he went to work and had the antennae set up within a few minutes. He’d charged his cordless drill in an outlet in one of the minivans, and as he zipped the last screw in, was grateful he had it.

Playing out the wire behind him, when he reached the hatch a wicked grin spread across his face.
He dropped the cable down to Connie and saw her grab it and tug.

“Is that it?” She asked as she looked
to where its end barely reached the floor.

“That’s it,” he answered as he
put a small piece of wood under the hatch to keep it from pinching the wire. After closing it slowly, he climbed down onto the desk he’d used to boost him up.

Sean came in, so Brain told him, “I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is that the antenna is up, but the bad news is that you have to move.”

Sean face grew bright red as he said loudly, “Move? Why do I have to move?”

“The wire isn’t long enough, so we have to set up our radio room here,” Brain explained. “
If you don’t mind a twenty-four seven roommate with a radio on all the time, I guess you’re welcome to stay.”

“Get more wire,” Sean demanded.

Brain shrugged and said, “Okay. Get dressed. You and I can grab a car and go back up to the highway and find some.”

“That’s not
my job,” Sean said as he stamped his foot on the tile floor childishly.

“It is if you don’t want to move,” Brain told him.

“Figure out some other way to do it then,” he demanded. “There’s got to be something you can come up with.”

“Oh yeah,” Brain said sarcastically, “I’ll just Google it.”

Grumbling again, Sean gathered his things and went in search of a new room.

When he was gone, Brain told Connie, “Start getting everything
together while I go grab a car battery. Use the desk to set everything up. I’ll see if I can find a ladder too.”

When they were done, Brain
realized that he needed to adjust the antennae. It was easier getting up to the roof with the ladder in place, so he made short work of it. As he was climbing back down through the hatch, he looked to the east as his mind wandered to what he and Connie would do after they finally got Cindy somewhere.

With h
is head still above the sill; a wide low cloud caught his attention. At first thinking it was a storm, he realized it was coming up off the ground. Climbing back up for a better look, he perched at the peak of the roof and shielded his eyes against the glare of the setting sun behind him.

His mouth watered at the thought of fresh beef.
He’d seen images on TV of huge herds of cattle and saw how they created such a dust storm. He remembered how their hooves would churn up huge clouds.

Or feet, he thought with shock as he realized
that all the cattle were gone.

***

Tick-Tock entered the room that he and Denise shared and saw that she had pushed the two single beds together to make it a full size.

That’ll work, he thought, unless we decide to do the wild thing in the
center and fall through.

She was sitting
at a desk, and turned to smile at him as he entered, saying, “I checked everything out like you asked, and things look pretty good as far as supplies go. Grimm and Igor have been stripping everything they could find off the highway for a long time, so they’ve got more food than I think we could all eat in a month. Add our stuff to that with whatever else we can scavenge, and we should be good for awhile. I ran into the raggedy twins and they took me on a tour of the place. Between dancing and flopping around, they told me that all the appliances in the kitchen are electric so they eat one hot meal a day when they fire up the generator. I also found out that they draw their water from a well.”

“With the electricity off,” Tick-Tock asked
, “How do they run the pump?”

“They cut
the pipe and put one of those old hand pumps on it,” Denise explained. “The water was used for irrigation so it doesn’t taste that great, but it’ll keep us alive. What did you find?”

“The storm panels are aluminum,” he told her. They’ll hold up to a small assault but not
much more than that.”

Pulling a chair up next to her
, he unfolded a map and laid it out before saying, “Now we have to find a way around Jasper.”

“We can’t stay here for
just a little while?” She asked with disappointment.

“We’re going rest up for a bit, but then we’ve got to move
,” he told her.

She was about to say something when
the sounds of Connie calling for Tick-Tock and Steve interrupted her. The survivors had taken five rooms at the opposite end of the second floor from where Brain was setting up his radio room. Despite the length of the hall, due to the enormity of the house, they clearly heard the fear in her voice.

T
ogether they bolted up and ran into the hall as Connie was coming toward them. She waved for them to follow her before taking off at a dead run. Grimm poked her head out of the recreation room to see what was going on and watched as Tick-Tock and Denise raced by.

Following them at a slow walk, she already had a good idea of what had caused all the commotion.

They had spotted her children.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Russellville Arkansas:

Lieutenant Randal told
the soldier on duty that he needed some air as he left the farmhouse. He’d just finished a meeting with Doctor Hawkins, and beside the fact that he needed to tell Major Cage what was going on, the orders the doctor had given him made him feel ill enough to actually need the fresh air.