The Zombie Plagues Dead Road: The Collected books. (117 page)

“
Jesus! Jesus, Billy...
Dead!”
She shrugged her machine pistol off
her shoulder and caught it with both hands. She was already moving
toward the back vehicles. In front of her, Bear was turning away
from her, back toward the rear, his massive frame blocking her
view. Somewhere towards the back truck someone began to
scream.
Iris,
she
thought,
it was Iris who was
screaming.

She found herself running at that
point. Her legs pumping effortlessly, the adrenaline surging
through her veins. Iris was in the truck with Mac.

She had no sooner had the thought then
she heard another voice began to scream. She couldn't place it, but
as she rounded Bear, catching up and passing him, she saw that two
zombies had Mac on the ground, tearing chunks from his arms as he
tried to fight them off.

“
Beth!
” Billy screamed from behind her. “
Right. Your right!
”

She had been just about to fire at the
two zombies attacking Mac, and so even as she turned, she did not
turn her pistol completely, but kept it aimed to the front towards
Mac and the two zombies. By the time she registered how close the
three zombies were to her, there was no time to turn the pistol and
fire. They were nearly on her. She had no more registered their
faces, jaws wide, teeth gnashing - she had not even had the time to
worry about her own fate yet - when the lead zombie's head blew
apart in a spray of black blood and bone.

She blinked involuntarily and managed
to bring her pistol around as the two remaining zombies tried to
reverse direction in mid stride. Their eyes were wild, trapped
looking. She brought up the pistol and pulled the
trigger.

Nothing happened, and her
heart staggered in her chest. The safety...
the fucking safety
, her mind
screamed, and that was when another zombie hit her from the side
and she went sprawling onto the dirt road. There were two more on
her before she could get turned over. She felt the first bite to
her arm and ignored it, as she concentrated on getting the safety
off the pistol she had somehow managed to hold onto as she
fell.

The passenger door on the second truck
flew open, and Scotty jumped from the truck, machine pistol spiting
fire as he ran. The gunfire all along the road was crazy. It had
instantly become a war zone. Scotty made it halfway around the hood
of the truck when he stepped into a crossfire and his head
exploded, spraying across the hood of the truck.

Bear sprayed the woods with his machine
pistol. The dead had all come from the same direction, and once he
had focused on them, it had been easy to mow them down. They began
to slow, some turning to run back into the woods, some standing as
if they didn't know what to do. Bear launched himself away from the
truck fender he had been leaning against and began to run at them,
firing as he went, a scream building from his throat.

Billy had staggered to a stop just past
the end of his rear bumper. He had watched Scotty come into his
line of fire, and he had instantly let loose of his trigger, but it
had been too late. He was in shock and time seemed to slow to a
crawl. His eyes swiveled back around, and he saw that Beth was
pinned to the ground by two zombies. He yelled and charged the
zombies, raising the stock of his rifle, smashing in the back of
the head of the first zombie, kicking the other aside with a hard
shot to the ribs and spraying him with a short burst that took his
head from his shoulders after he had rolled a short distance across
the ground.

~

Marcus had stopped at the last truck
and dragged the young man inside through the open window. Two more
joined him and pulled him the rest of the way out of the
truck.

Marcus lunged through the open window
and fastened his teeth on Iris's throat as she tried to fight him
off, and the inside of the truck became a slaughter house. He was
so engrossed in feeding, that he did not see the machine pistols
barrel as it thrust through the open window a few minutes later. He
only barely felt it as it bit into the back of his head. Bear
pulled the trigger, and his head blew apart. Iris stopped
screaming.

Something happened to the remaining
zombies after Bear killed Marcus. It was like a switch had been
flipped in every one of them at the same time.

They stopped in mid stride, tried to
turn back to the woods, but the machine pistols mowed then down
where they stood or as they turned to run. Bear, Billy and Beth
were on their feet moving in a loose line toward the wooded area
once again.

Behind them, Cammy, Jamie and Winston,
who had stayed in the trucks with the children, came out now and
joined them. The gunfire held strong for a few moments, and then
everything stopped at once. The last zombies fell or managed to get
far enough into the woods as to no longer be seen.

Silence crashed down all along the
road. It held for what seemed like minutes. The swirling haze of
smoke from the gunfire hung heavy in the late afternoon air. The
headlights of the trucks cut through it, making it dance through
the blue-white beams of light. The overcast sky and the sudden
silence made it seem as though night had arrived all at once. There
was very little to hear in the silence: the still running trucks, a
scratching, scrabbling sound as one of the undead tried to crawl
off the road and into the woods. Beth turned shakily from the
woods, her face hard, set. She pulled her knife from her side
sheath, took a few steps and straddled the zombie. She reached
down, grabbed his hair, pulled his head back as he snapped and
snarled, trying to reach her with his teeth. The knife flashed as
she embedded it into the side of his head. She thrust one booted
foot against his head and pulled her knife free, letting his head
fall into the dirt. She pulled a rag from her pocket and cinched it
tightly around her arm, cutting off the blood flow.

The silence held for a second longer,
and then Beth began to sob as she sank down to the
ground.

The Nation

The barn was shadowed and cool after
the hot sun in the valley. The entire Nation was digging potatoes.
Lilly, Patty and Candace were grounded from the heavy work, but
they had walked down from the main cave and watched them at work on
their way to the barn to collect eggs for Jan.

Candace had truly believed that after
Mike and Ronnie left, Sandy would allow them to go back to some
sort of light work. It would have proven she had only grounded them
to make sure they did not go on the expedition to the outside.
Maybe she had been wrong though, she thought now. Sandy had not
changed her mind.

“
What I want to know,”
Lilly said, “is what is the difference between picking eggs up or
digging potatoes?”

“
The potatoes don't have
crap all over them,” Patty said.

Lilly laughed.

“
Not really though, right?”
Candace asked.

“
What do I win?” Patty
asked.

Candace slugged her in the arm. “It
wasn't a contest. Besides, you forgot to answer in the form of a
question.”

“
What is, the potatoes
don't have crap all over them, Alex?” Lilly asked.

“
Lilly wins,” Candace
said.

“
Wow,” Patty said. “You
guys cheat so bad.”

“
So, for real, do the
chickens lay the eggs and then leave them? We come along and just
pick them up? And they're not really covered with crap, right?”
Candace asked.

“
You know, later you're
coming down with me to get fresh rabbits for dinner,” Patty
reminded her. “I expect you to know all about the modern farm by
dinner this evening.” She smiled at Candace's sarcastic grin.
“Okay, the chicken lays the egg and then sits on it. You have to
move the chicken to get the egg.”

“
Oh... Great,” Candace
said.

“
It's not so bad,” Lilly
said. “Tom brought me down a few times. Just act like you have a
right to be there. Reach right in, move the chicken over and take
the eggs.”

“
Crap on toast. I suck at
this sort of stuff,” Candace complained.

Lilly laughed. “Where
does
Crap On Toast
come from? You and Arlene have the funniest sayings I have
ever heard.”

“
Okay,” Patty said. They
faced the line of baskets and the wire mesh door to the chicken
roost. Across the barn, the rabbits had a whole section to
themselves. “Grab a basket and a pair of gloves.”

Candace picked up one of the pairs of
gloves. They were heavy leather, stiff. She put them back and
picked up a basket. “Oh,” she set the basket back and picked up
another. “Wow. These baskets are not too clean, Pats,” She showed
Patty one of the baskets.

Patty took a basket, looked at it and
then handed it to Candace. “It's a basket for collecting eggs,
Candy.” She turned it over and a few feathers drifted out of
it.

Candace looked into the basket. “It's
got crap in it.” She looked closer. “It looks like chicken crap to
me.”

“
It is,” Patty
said.

“
Well, I was thinking,
clean eggs in a basket that has chicken crap in it?”

Lilly began to laugh. Patty choked back
her own laughter.

“
What?” Candace
asked.

“
Oh, God. Don't you make me
pee myself, Candy,” Lilly said.

“
But what!?”

“
Okay,” Patty said. She bit
back her own laughter. “I guess it's not funny. You don't know
anything about eggs. Are you sure you want to come down here later
to get the rabbits for dinner?”

Candace sighed. “No, but I have to
learn sometime. So where have I got it wrong with the
eggs?”

“
Honey, it's easier to show
you. Here,” she handed her the basket and then a pair of the stiff
leather gloves.

“
I'll skip the gloves,”
Candace said. “I can't even flex my fingers in them. I'll never be
able to grab an egg.” She tossed the heavy gloves onto the nearby
bench top

Patty shook her head, grabbed a pair of
gloves and a basket and then opened the door and stepped into the
chicken coop. Lilly stepped in behind her and closed the
door.

“
Christ, chickens stink,”
Candace complained.

“
They do. Used to be
dinosaurs,” Lilly said.

“
Jesus, a two story tall
chicken, but chickens don't seem mean enough to be a
dinosaur.”

“
Oh, they're mean
bastards,” Patty said. “Don't kid yourself. So,” she slipped on a
glove, reached in and under the chicken, and came out with an egg.
“Just like that.” She dropped the egg in her basket.

“
Okay,” Candace stepped to
the next chicken, plunged her hand under the chicken and then
pulled it back with the egg. “There's another egg under there,” she
said as she dropped the egg into her basket. She looked at her
hand. “Eww,” she looked at the egg in the basket. “There's chicken
shit all over the egg and my hand,” she held her hand up, but Patty
and Lilly were both hanging onto each other laughing so hard they
couldn't catch their breath.

“
Oh my God,”
Lilly complained.

Patty tried to stop
laughing, but Candace was still standing, her hand splayed, looking
at the streaks of chicken shit that now adorned it.
“
I tried to tell you... I tried...”
She gave up and pushed Candace back out through
the door, closed it, laughing harder as she walked away to the
trough that entered the barn. She picked up a steel cup and filled
it with water after tipping the trough to get the water to flow
clear. She picked up a sliver of lye soap and walked back to
Candace.

“
Hold your hands out.” She
waited until she did and then poured the water over them as Candace
worked them together. She handed her a piece of lye soap. The soap
was iffy, more likely to burn than anything else. Candace grimaced
as she worked some soap into both hands. Patty poured the rest of
the water over her hands. “Don't touch your eyes for awhile,” Lilly
reminded her. She had managed to stop laughing, as had
Patty.

“
Okay,” Patty said. “For
real. You have to wear the gloves. Eggs have shit on them. They
come that way, and sometimes the chickens will peck you as you're
taking the egg. They don't always take that well. Other than that,
you did good.”

“
I didn't know chicken eggs
had shit on them,” Candace said.

“
You grew up somewhere
where you never had to deal with real eggs I guess,” Lilly said. “I
grew up in Watertown and I still gathered eggs a few
times.”

Candace frowned. “Never
picked -
gathered -
eggs before. Okay... I imagine this is stupid. Why do the eggs
have crap on them? Because the chicken is sitting on them? Do they
always have crap on them? I may never look at eggs the same
again.”

Lilly chuckled along with Patty.
“Okay,” Lilly said. “Chickens don't have, um, a separate vagina.
Chickens have one canal, so to speak. It all comes out one
hole.”

“
Jesus. That's messed
up.”