The Zombie Plagues Dead Road: The Collected books. (157 page)

Bobby herself had never had sex. She
had thought about it, but sex was right out of the picture
completely. No marriage, no sex. So she was a nineteen year old
virgin. A nineteen year old lesbian virgin, she told
herself.

All that strict religious upbringing.
All the prayers that seemed to go unanswered. All the attractions
in the world. All the boys she had dated, pawing her because that
was what she was supposed to allow. Somehow that was different from
the other stuff. She still didn't have that figured out. Some sort
of double standard, she guessed.

All the times she had wished for a
woman of her own. College and roommate after roommate who would
walk around semi nude, or completely nude as if it didn't matter to
anyone. And now this.

Now she was maybe going to find out
what love was all about... Or at least sex.

She had wondered about her back a
hundred years ago, or so it seemed like a hundred years since she
had decided to follow the others into the mountains. She had met
her then. And hadn't there been something right then? Hadn't there
been something in the way she had brushed off all the guys
advances? Wasn't there?

Maybe, she told herself.
And Bonnie was beautiful. She could have had any of those men at
all. Any one she chose. Craige had been interested and had made no
bones about it. But she had shut him down. Not harsh, just an easy
no. She liked him, but it was still no. And then she had looked at
Bobby and the look had said,
Well?
Hadn't it?

But she was so goddamned afraid to
change. So afraid to say what she really felt. Speak what was
really on her mind. Afraid her parents would turn over in their
graves if they knew. Afraid that God would cast thunderbolts from
his heaven. Afraid of being afraid, she told herself
now.

She reached the entrance and hesitated.
She took a deep breath, stepped around the wall and into the
chamber past a hanging tarp that someone had closed off the
entrance with.

Bonnie was in the water holding onto
the rocky ledge. She looked sad, lost in thought, but her face
brightened as Bobby stepped into the room and broke into her
thoughts with a soft hello.

“
I thought you changed your
mind, “ Bonnie told her with a smile.

“
Just scared... A little. I
thought maybe it was a joke,” Bobby told her as she reached the
pools edge and looked down into her eyes.

Bonnie pushed her hands down onto the
ledge and lifted herself out of the water. She stood on the stone
floor, water running across her naked body and dripping to the
floor. She twisted the water out her honey blonde hair, as Bobby
tried hard to look like she wasn't just looking at her nudity. She
walked over to Bobby, took the towel and the clothes out of her
hands and set them with her own things.

“
I've been trying to tell
you for weeks, Bobby. It's not a joke. I wouldn't do that to you,”
she said.

Bobby let her breath out slowly. Trying
to slow her heartbeat. She took a deep breath. Leaned forward and
kissed Bonnie's lips. Her hands lit upon her breasts and then
quickly flew away as if startled. A second later as the kiss
deepened they came back and stayed, tracing circles around Bonnie's
nipples.

Bonnie's hands found the buttons on
Bobby's shirt and began to work at them.

~

Sandy's Journal.

It's late. I spent the night, early
evening, going over herbal remedies. Old folklore, time tested
stuff. It's surprising how much we've come to depend on chemicals
to do the job that we already have remedies from nature
for.

The book gave me a headache, Susan took
that away. I love her so much. I really do.

Things are going good here. We're going
to have lights soon. They talked about it at the meeting tonight.
Steve Choi is amazing, and he knows his stuff too. A real doctor,
and he is teaching us. We also have hot water. Real hot water and
it is practically free. Mother nature made, spirit given. It seems
like such a small thing but it is a big deal to us.

We also have more space. Al because we
finally got around to exploring the rest of this cave that we were
led to. Amy, Lilly, Cindy, Craig and Bonnie spent most of the day
exploring and they discovered the hot pool and two new caves with
openings to the outside. One opens to the opposite side of this
mountain in fact. Candace was there with them too, I suppose. We
all had hot baths tonight. It was great. Unbelievable in
fact.

Tomorrow we'll start arranging our
space. Bob will sort out the volunteers with the farm work, and
Tom, Ronnie and that crew will start with building houses. Setting
up the saw mill, building homes. I can tell you, I have never been
this happy in my life.

~

“
I'm tired, baby. It's
been a long, long day,” Candace said as she and Mike walked through
the darkness of the valley toward home. The meeting in the barn had
not lasted all that long, but writing it all down had been a bear.
Amy had been right about that. It would be great once Tim got some
to the computers up and working so they could just record it and
turn it into text. Lilly had pointed out that it would be easier,
but that all the stuff they were writing now would have to be
written all over again as it was typed in. Amy had promised to talk
to Tim and get him to hurry so there wouldn't be a mountain of
stuff waiting to be typed in.

“
It has been a long day,”
Mike agreed.

“
Good. Then you agree it is
time to put your woman to bed,” Candace told him. She giggled.
“Just be glad I'm not making you carry me the last bit,” she said
as the house came into view.

“
Oh, is that so,” Mike
asked as he stopped. He bent, and picked her up in his arms before
she could say another word.

“
If you make one crack
about it being a heavy load or something...”

“
Wouldn't think of it,
honey. Wouldn't think of it,” he told her as they mounted the steps
and he toed the door open.

She giggled as they made their way
inside.

Donita

New York

The fires smoldered but no longer
burned.

Donita walked down Eighth Avenue
towards Columbus Circle. Behind her a silent army followed,
numbering in the thousands. From the circle they would take the
park.

There were thousands of the living
camped out in the park. She could smell them on the air that flowed
past her face as she walked. They had believed they were safe in
their numbers. They had believed that nothing could touch them with
their barricades. And for a time that had been true, but that time
was passed now.

She had begun her walk with only a few
thousand, but that number had grown as she had traveled across the
land to this place. The small towns, and the dead cities along the
way, added their contributions from those that had gathered in
those places. Many waiting for her. There were dozens of cities
they controlled now. Dotted along the route she had walked. Some
she had called and set in a place of power with the ability to call
more of their own to them. Some had been there waiting for her. All
had known who she was, and all had bowed to her power.

In the crowds there were other leaders.
She knew them, they traveled with their own. To the south there
would be another, to the west yet one more, across the oceans
others she could sense and almost feel with the senses that death
bought to her. She understood those concepts: Other places, other
leaders, but not the places or the dead themselves. The places
meant no more to her than this place, or the name she used to know
so well as her own. Meaningless. The dead only followed, as she
herself followed. What mattered to the dead were things that could
not be conceived of by the breathers, and as time passed they grew
further apart. It became harder to see that there had once been a
connection of any kind.

From Northeast Philadelphia to what had
been Woodbridge Township the land was an open sore. The cities
largely leveled, the roads gone. Trees, shrubs and grasses working
quickly to wipe the scar of the breathers from the land. She and
those that followed had continued through these desolate areas and
began to find more of their own in Elisabeth, and then in Newark.
They had crossed to Jersey City and from there she had led them
through the Holland Tunnel, still powered and intact after
everything and into Manhattan. They had walked up Eighth Avenue as
if they owned it. The living were there. There and watching, well
protected in their hiding places, but they offered no fight. Did
not try to stop them. There remained only Columbus circle and then
they would take Central Park.

There were thousands here, and they
believed in their safety, but then the diseases had begun to kill
them off. And the bodies began to pile up faster than they could
remove them. From there it had gone down hill fast. They had begun
to banish those who were sick, but that failed too because there
were too many that were sick, and the dead were turning faster.
There was no way to get them all, and so they began to hide from
the others.

That had been the beginning of the end,
they had begun to fall apart from the inside out, and they were
ready to be taken now. There would be losses, but they would be
nothing at all compared to the gains, and Donita was willing to
suffer them.

She reached the circle and the army
behind her came to a halt. Silent in the gloom of early evening.
Looking from side to side, other leaders stood in front of their
own, waiting. An occasional scrape of a foot across the cracked
pavement, the soft rustle of moldering clothing the only sounds
from the vast crowd. Donita stood and stared off into the park
entrance across the other side of the circle.

A scatter of wrecked and long burned
out vehicles partially blocked the entrance. A line of buses
blocked the roads and pathways into the park. Sheet steel was
welded over the windows. Holes burned through with Acetylene
torches every few feet as gun ports. A long line of concrete
barricades crossed in front of the buses about a hundred yards out,
wrapped around the park entrances, and shot away up Central Park
West and West 59th on the other side. The barriers extended out
into the streets as far as she could see, but she saw no one
patrolling or watching from the trees. Nothing. No rifle tips poked
from the gun ports cut into the sheet steel either. Even so, she
could smell them and their fear. They had seen this army from a
long way off coming down Eighth Avenue. They knew what it meant for
them, and many, she could tell, had accepted it. Suicide seemed to
be their answer. Done right, even she could not bring them back.
And some had opted for that out. Even now as she stood and
listened, she heard the occasional gunshot. Some far off, some
closer by.

But others only hastened the change. A
shot that killed but did not destroy. In a matter of hours, or even
minutes, they would come back. In a few days they would begin the
process of change and they would find their way to the
dead.

The ones behind her knew not to kill
for the sake of killing. Not to destroy those they needed. There
were plenty that were not needed. Those could be killed and
consumed. Thousands upon thousands of the weak, the elderly, the
ones she did not wish to make a part of her army. Those she left to
them to do as they wished. But they knew the penalty for taking one
that was hers: Death. Permanent death. And after a taste of
forever, thinking once again about death was inconceivable. That
would keep the majority of them in line. The few that did step out
she would take care of personally.

She watched as the barrel of a rifle
slipped through a ragged hole in the sheet steel. She looked around
at her silent army once more and then thrust her head back, face
staring up at the moon, and screamed into the darkening night: As a
mass they all ran at the line of buses.

Donita hit the bus and quickly
scrambled up the side, climbing over the shoulders of others. The
gunshots were hard and steady, and dozens fell as the shooters
found their mark. She reached the top along with hundreds of others
and the roads into the park lay open before them. Lightly guarded,
there were few left who could guard. The metal of the bus roof that
surrounded her began to dimple as she paused, as if some unseen
magic was causing the holes to suddenly appear. Donita launched
herself through the air, came down, and ran straight at a man who
stood firing over the tops of the buses. Spraying those that
reached the top with bullets.

He saw her far too late, tried to turn,
but she reached him and hit him hard, driving him to the ground.
She straddled him, jerked him upward by the vest he wore and bit
deeply into his throat. Her mouth widened as she fastened her teeth
on his throat, across his throat, and then bit deeply. His arteries
went in a spray of red and she tossed him lifeless back to the
ground and made her feet once more.

Two of her fingers flew away as a
bullet hit her raised hand, she screamed and tackled the shooter to
the ground, ripping his head completely from his body as he was
still falling. She was up quickly and running into the darkness of
the park, the others close behind her. The shooting all but behind
them now.