The Zombie Plagues Dead Road: The Collected books. (111 page)

“
And soon too, I bet,” Mike
said.

“
Gonna have to be,” Tom
said. “We have harvesting coming up. A lot of harvesting... grain,
corn... those two bridges we need to put in before
winter.”

Ronnie nodded. “We decided
that neither you nor Bob can go. I mean, you can make a case to go
if you really want to. It's not selfish. Well, it is. You two do
almost everything... all the important mechanical stuff that the
rest of us can only lend a hand with. If you,
either of you,
go, the Nation is in
trouble.”

“
Sounds like you are being
forced to stay,” Mike said.

Tom and Bob both held up hands and then
laughed. “I don't want to go,” Bob said.

“
Yeah, I'm good here too. I
like my place in things. It's,” Tom shrugged.

“
Good?” Bob
supplied.

“
Good,” Tom
agreed.

“
As long as it doesn't feel
forced,” Mike looked over at Ronnie. “It's a relief to me. I can
say that.”

“
Me too,” Ronnie
agreed.

“
So... a meeting,” Bob
said. “I suggested tomorrow night, get it right out there. Set a
date, and get together those that are going to go.”

“
Well, Bob, I'm so glad I
had this talk with you,” Mike said with a smile. They all laughed
hard. Bob reddened.

The big gelding looked up and then
wandered back over to Bob. Bob scratched behind his ears, and they
all laughed again.

“
Don't make me set my horse
on you,” Bob said as he scratched the horse's long nose.

“
That is a big frigging
horse,” Ronnie said. “Uh, it was Mike that made the smart ass
remark.”

Mike laughed and looked over at
Ronnie.

“
Just saying,” Ronnie threw
back. They all laughed again.

“
Come on. I'll buy you a
drink,” Mike joked. He clapped Bob on the back.

“
You better get me that saw
mill,” Bob told him.

“
That farm store? The last
one, right?”

“
Yup,” Bob
agreed.

Mike pulled a small spiral notebook
from his pocket and scribbled a note. He slipped the notebook back
into his pocket, and the three men walked from the barn, closing
the huge doors behind them as they went.

CHAPTER FIVE

September 3rd

The sky was overcast and matched the
mood Bear found himself in perfectly. They were on the road; it was
very early morning, but no one had wanted to waste any time
leaving. There was no reason to delay it. They had all been on
guard through the night, only waiting for the sunrise. A quick
check of the roof, and they had been on their way.

Don's truck had still been burning.
Several more vehicles had become involved in it through the night.
It looked like the entire parking lot would probably burn. It also
looked like the fire would probably work its way to the buildings
before it was through. Maybe the burning would be for the best,
Bear had mentioned. No one had disagreed.

There had been two big explosions
before dawn. The last one, a huge one that had lifted two cars into
the sky and scattered debris all the way to the store front. There
was no doubt that Don and the others were past saving. All that
remained was for everyone to wonder why he had done what he did.
There was no real answer for that at all. You could not know
another person's mind, Bear knew, even if you thought you
did.

The dead had been spirited
away in the night. That had bothered Bear a great deal. The dead
had come for their own. That was something a human would do, and he
had not considered the zombies to be human, to
have
human traits, qualities,
feelings. Was it feelings? A sense of duty? No way to know. Same
old answer, but that didn't change the fact that they had come and
gotten their own. Whether it was simple recycling, back into the
food chain, or a sense of duty, or something else, Bear didn't
know.

What also disturbed him about it, even
more than the why of it, was that he hadn't seen them come. There
had been fires burning all around the bodies, yet they had come and
taken them, and Bear had seen nothing; and, he reminded himself
now, no one else had seen anything either. The bodies had simply
been gone this morning.

They had checked the roof at first
light, trying to work out how the dead had gotten in. Bear and Beth
both wanted to be on their way, but both of them also wanted to
know how the dead had managed to get into the building. Bear, Beth,
Cammy and Billy had climbed the narrow, black steel ladder at one
side of the building that led to the roof.

Beth had found an air duct at the back
of the store that lead to the roof. A crowbar lay beside the ruined
sheet metal top. They had pried the top off, crawled into the duct
work and gotten inside the store. Once in, they had used the steel
roof supports that made up the ceiling to make their way to where
they had been. From there it had been easy to drop straight down on
them. Beth had stood for a moment, looking down at the vent, and
then she turned away.

Bear stood looking down at the vent
where it had been pried open to gain access. It had been bad, but
he supposed it could have been worse. What if there had been no
watch? What if several of them had not been awake talking? What
if...

“
Don't,” Cammy said from
beside him.

Billy looked over at Cammy's voice, and
then turned back away. A second later, he walked away, heading back
to the ground.

“
What?” Bear
asked.

Cammy only shook her head and followed
after Billy as he left the roof. Bear stood for a moment, shook his
own head, and then followed along.

The four trucks pulled out into the
median of route three, and followed Bear along the side of the
highway, weaving around stalled trucks and cars as they
went.

~

Bear looked over at Cammy. Her silence
was brooding. Something he had done had pissed her off. “Come on,
Cammy,” Bear said as he drove slowly around an overturned tractor
trailer combo. Somehow the trailer had stayed attached as the truck
had turned over. He drove up the slight rise at the side of the
highway, skirted the trees, branches scratching against the side
window, and then angled back down toward the side of the road. He
looked over at Cammy.

Cammy fixed him with a
deep frown. “You're sitting there going over this like there was
something you could have done differently, and there isn't. I don't
even know why you chose to lead this. No one asked you to. Yeah, it
was there,
offered.
But you took it, and you didn't have to. And you're a good
leader, but part of that is because you feel things... take it all
so personal. You can't. You have to let that go. I saw that same
shit rip Maddy apart. I won't watch it twice.” She turned back to
her window and watched the world pass by in slow motion.

Bear had left the side of the highway.
They were traveling through the fields now, staying close to the
roadway, but the roadway itself was impassable, cars and trucks
jammed together for as far as they could see.

Bear said nothing, only concentrated on
driving. The fields were overgrown, and they could not make good
speed because there was no way to know what was in front of them at
any given time. Twice Bear had driven into a boggy area. He was
only saved by the low speed and the four wheel drive, backing out
and then edging by closer to the highway.

The rain began to fall in the early
afternoon as they passed a road sign for Tannersville, and Cammy
announced that they were inside Pennsylvania and had been for
several miles. They began to follow the thruway.

The sides of the thruway were wider,
and the traveling, despite the constant rain, was easier. In the
late afternoon they reached Route 81. Bear skirted the interchange
overpass and, with the other trucks following, turned on to the
interstate highway. A short way down the interstate, they came to a
break in the roadway, just past the signs that marked the outskirts
of Hazleton. A deep ravine crossed the highway, filled with a river
of water. The exits were still ahead, past the break in the
highway. Bear rolled to a stop at the edge of the break. The
stalled cars and trucks had not been so bad on the interstate. It
had looked as though they would begin to make good time. Now
this.

Huge portions of the road were gone.
Deep gulleys cut crossways, flooded now with the constant rain.
Both lanes of the highway were out directly ahead. Bear had stopped
a hundred yards from the drop off. He picked up the radio from the
dashboard. The rain was driving now, drumming on the steel
roof.

“
We can't go any further in
this. Road's gone ahead of us, and it looks as though it has been
for a while. Once the rain stops, we might be able to wait out the
flooding, but It doesn't look real promising.”

“
Junk yard... off to the
left,” Billy said. The radio was static filled and scratchy despite
the fact that Billy was less than fifty feet behind them. Bear
rubbed at the glass. It had fogged up when it began to rain and had
stayed that way most of the day.

Off to the left, a huge junk yard
stretched away towards the city of Hazleton. The junk yard itself
was a good half mile or more from the interstate though, and Bear
wondered whether they could get to it. The city of Hazleton lay
beyond that. At least he assumed it was the city of Hazleton. The
signs said it was.

“
If we could make that...
we could use that to get into the city. Might be clear on the other
side,” Billy finished.

Bear looked out the window at the huge
expanse of blacktop. At one edge, a few cars were tilted into the
air, half sunk into the ground. There was water flowing at one edge
of the fenced in yard. He could not tell how deep it was. Overall,
though, it seemed in good shape. He traced likely routes with his
eyes. It looked passable, but that was from his vantage point on
the highway, looking it over through the pouring rain. Directly
ahead, there was a steep embankment down from the interstate and a
field of tall grass to pass through that could both present
problems.

“
It doesn't look that good,
Billy. From here I don't see a way out. I don't see anything under
that grass, but there could be...” Bear trailed off, held the
button for a second and then released it.

“
Right... Right... From
here, though, I can see through the grass in places. Back up a bit,
Bear. Back up and see. Old dirt roads out from the junk yard... or
around it... something.”

Bear shifted into reverse, cut to the
left and backed down the length of Beth's and then Billy's truck.
Mac's truck sat further back, idling in the rain.

The wind whipped the grass, and from
this angle it was possible to see the ground beneath it, at least
parts of it. There were parts of old roads. He could also see more
of the junk yard too, a few out buildings, and there seemed to be a
clear route through the yard and out. A road did emerge from the
trees on the other side and lead toward the city. He didn't see a
clear connection though. He glanced back ahead and then over at
Billy through the glass. He clicked the radio.

“
Beth?”

“
Beats sitting here,” she
replied.

“
Down we go,” Bear replied,
after a brief pause. He took his foot off the brake, backed around
Billy's truck and then rolled forward.

The drop off for the embankment was
sharp. He rolled up slowly, let the front tires ease over the break
off and then tried to control his descent into the field
below.

The Nation: September 4th

Mike walked down along the stream to
where it made the turn into the second valley. He, Ronnie, Tom and
Bob were looking for the best places to put in footbridges to cross
the stream. In places, it was more like a small river than a
stream. At others it flattened out and was no more than a few feet
deep as it made its way along the valley floor.

“
Tim wants to put lights
down this far,” Mike said to no one in particular.

“
I believe he will too,”
Bob said. He stopped and looked back down the length of the valley.
“Talk to Candace yet?”

Mike nodded and looked over at Ronnie
who nodded too.

“
Bet that was fun,” Tom
said with a smile. “If I told Lilly I was going back out there?
Christ, I don't want to think about how it would go.”

“
Yeah... Well, that's about
how it went for us too. Only difference being, we told them
together. Really, all things considered, they took it
well.”

“
Patty thinks the council
should get together tonight, nail down some absolutes. How long,
who goes. She wants to go; so does Candace,” Ronnie
said.

“
No way,” Mike said. “I
mean...” He shook his head.

“
She's pregnant,” Bob said.
“It may be that Sandy will have to say no for you. We talked about
getting together tonight. The council meeting should be open
though, as we discussed.”