The Zombie Plagues Dead Road: The Collected books. (168 page)

“
Come on, Pearl. Drink the
soda,” He held out his other hand. “Maybe three shots left in
this... Maybe it will help that headache.” He sloshed the whiskey
inside the nearly empty pint bottle.

Pearl tried a small smile on her face,
took the whiskey and sipped experimentally. She closed her eyes as
the fire burned down into her stomach. It did seem to help. She
handed the bottle back to Billy and took the soda. She upended the
can and drained it. It was like heaven and did more to clear her
head and knock the headache back than the whiskey had. Still, the
whiskey had its attraction. She motioned with her fingers and Billy
gave the bottle back to her.

“
I take it that I am not
bitten anywhere?” She asked after another small sip.

“
Bruises on your throat. No
bites though,” Billy told her.

She sipped again and relished the feel
of the fire slipping down her throat. Billy handed her another soda
and she upended that one to. He handed her one more and a couple of
small bags of trail mix from his own backpack, and a few of the
beef sticks from the counter. All of them had found their way into
his backpack. Food was food, you took it where you found
it.

“
You should eat, Pearl,” he
said.

She nodded carefully. Killed the small
bottle and handed it back to Billy before she took a sip of the
warm soda and then tore open the top of a bag of trail mix. It
seemed that the food and soda refueled her body and knocked the
headache far back in just a few minutes.

“
How long,” she asked after
a few moments.

“
A couple of hours... Had
me scared,” Billy admitted. “Sun's been up about three
hours.”

She finished the trail mix and tossed
the bag aside as she carefully swung her legs to the floor and
stood. “Goddammit that hurts,” she sat back down and held her head.
“Feels like my brain is sloshing around in there... Probably is.”
She stopped talking as a wave of nausea rode over her: After it
passed she felt a little better: She examined her leg. “Probably
going to be the worst of it. It's infected, Billy. We need to get
somewhere to get some disinfectant... Cut it open and disinfect
it.” She sighed. She could feel heat baking into the palm of her
hand where it rested on her thigh. “Soon,” she added. She grimaced.
“I think I might live, Love.” She rose to her feet once more. “No
radio? No word from Beth or Bear?”

Billy shook his head. “Lost the radios
back by the wreck. Lost your knapsack back in that field... My
fault, didn't think to make sure we had it... We have to go back
that way though, so we can get it”

“
And we can serve ourselves
as lunch to the dead too. No thank you, we'll take a different
route back in. Radios are everywhere, we'll get one: We'll
re-supply ourselves too.” She looked down at the shirt. She looked
off into the garage and spied the truck. I need some aspirin...
Maybe a vitamin drink, something like that. We'll have to pick up
whatever else we need as we go. Re-establish communications with
Beth and Bear... They will expect it.” She flexed her neck, and
then massaged one shoulder as she limped off toward the truck. She
stopped and turned back. “William?” Her face wore a look of
concern.

“
Yeah... I thought maybe
you needed some rest, Pearl. You're banged up pretty
bad.”

She nodded carefully. “I'll live.
Aspirin, a few bandages to replace this headscarf,” she smiled,
“I'll be fine.”

Billy nodded and followed her. A few
moments later they were winding through the trees on the road he
had followed in.

The Nation

The fires burned low in the main
meeting area of the cave: A few people stood talking as Jessie
walked past them and she nodded and smiled when they looked her
way.

The Community was growing fast. There
were people coming in regularly now, sometimes fairly large
parties, this was a good place to live, a safe place, as long as
what had to be done was done. She was on her way now to do one of
those things that had to be done now.

She stepped out into the cold night and
shrugged more completely into her heavy coat as she headed down the
trail that lead into the valley. She heard footsteps behind her
before her name was called.

Brad rushed up slightly out of breath
and laughing. “I'll walk you down, Jess,” he said
seriously.

“
You can't come into the
barn... We have a bad one. I have to call it. A young woman that
came in with a group. Bitten, they think,” her eyes narrowed and
she looked away. “Still working on wiring?”

“
All of us,” Brad allowed.
“We will need miles of wire for all the projects Tim has
planned.”

“
Brad,” she turned to him
and held his eyes. “I was thinking... Why leave here. Why should we
leave this place? It could be a good home for us, you and me, the
baby.” She watched his face as a smile began to spread across
it.

“
I like it... I thought you
were set on making your own place. The fold,” Brad said after a
careful pause.

“
I am.” Jessie looked down
at the path and then back up at the snow that was still falling
lightly. It was a beautiful place. She wanted it to be her own
place. “It could be this place. I've thought it out. I'm not a
political person, well, maybe a little, but it isn't my main
motivation for what I want to do. I was upset about the way they
ran that meeting of theirs the other day. It was clear they had
already had a meeting of some sort and made their decisions. There
was no way they were going to let any opposing viewpoints
in.”

“
Whoa... Slow down, Jess.
I'm lost,” Brad told her.

“
Okay.” She slipped one arm
through his. The path was stone. Slippery under the scattering of
heavy, wet snow. “It's like this. The fold should have an equal say
here and it doesn't. There should be no difference between the two
controlling parties... The Nation.... The Fold, it should be the
same and it's not.”

“
Jessie,” Brad shook his
head. “There is no control for the Fold. That's why we're leaving
in the spring. To have our own place where it is an equal say on
how things run. Make the trip to Snoqualmie, see how it is; find
that place you've dreamed about in the desert.”

She nodded quietly. “But that is my
point, Brad.” She pulled at his arm, making him turn away from the
falling snow. “We could have all of that. It could all be one. Why
couldn't it? A rule that stretched from Seattle to here. Maybe on
to the east coast too.” She looked at him.

“
Are you asking me,
Jess?”

“
Of course I'm asking you.
Why is it that there is no say for the majority? We know the
majority have different ideas, but they just shove their agenda
through. We have no say. Why is that?”

Brad shrugged. “Jessie, it's their
show. Their valley. Their rules. I guess that means that the answer
is they don't want other opinions... Ideas.”

“
Right... So they think,
but I'm telling you that I have asked around and that is not the
case. They are doing it by trickery,” Jessie said.

“
Jess,” Brad
started.

“
Listen, were you invited
to the secret meeting? Did you or I or Sandy, or Susan or a dozen
others I could name get to go? No. They invited Steve Choi because
they wanted him on their panel... To smooth things over. He talked
to me. He told me they laughed about the way they were going to
shove the things they wanted through before anyone could get wise.
He didn't actually have much choice about whether he was on the
panel or not. Nobody even knows that there was a secret meeting
beforehand to shape the direction of the meeting so no one could
interject anything they didn't want to have in. No one.”

Brad scuffed at the ground as they
walked. Silent in his thoughts. “Okay. It is what it is,
Jess.”

“
Yes it is. Thank you, but
why did you make me fight you to get you to admit it? Is that how a
relationship stays strong?”

“
No,” Brad admitted. “I
just don't see the point. Yes, it's their valley. They run it the
way they want to. We're leaving next spring, or maybe not. I'm not
sure where you went with that. I...” He stopped on the path and
Jessie stopped beside him. “What are you saying Jess? Are you
saying take over somehow? Subvert their control? Take it away from
them? That seems crazy to me. You can't mean that.”

“
Why can't I mean that? Why
is it theirs when we have all helped to build it? Does being here a
month longer than the rest of us make it completely theirs? Didn't
we hate the old world for exactly that sort of stuff?” She shook
her head and they began to walk once more.

“
Look,
you make it sound evil or something,
subversive
... Okay, maybe it is a
little of all of those things, but it is a little of all of those
things because that is they way they made it. They forced our hand,
not the other way around. If they had said it was equal, if they
had made a provision for both sides.
If,
if, if.
They didn't, so it is a moot
point. All that is left for us is to get enough people together and
force their hand. Make them put people that represent our thoughts
on that council. Let them think all the new replacements are on
their own side and then swing those same people over to our side.”
She paused and looked at his face again. He was looking out over
the valley.

“
I don't
believe they went about this maliciously. I think they are just
trying to...
Protect
this place, I guess. I think they are just trying
to protect this place.”

“
I don't disagree,” Jessie
said quietly. “What I want though, is fairness. I don't think I
would let everyone have a say either, but I don't want my fate in
someones hands that doesn't have my best interest in mind.” The
barn was coming up fast. She stopped and pulled Brad down to her
own face and kissed him.

“
All I am asking is keep an
open mind. Sandy... Susan, Steve? They are on our side. Janna:
Sandy says she has talked to her and she and Bob would go along
too. They can pull the strings to make another meeting happen. We
can have equality.”

“
And if not? Do we leave in
the spring?” Brad asked.

Jessie just stared for a few moments.
“I don't think so... Maybe it won't be us that leaves,” Jessie
finished quietly. She kissed him once more and then walked off to
the barn.

~

Mike watched as Jessie stomped the wet
snow from her boots and then walked over to her.

“
Jessie, thanks,” Mike told
her. He took one hand. “How's that leg?”

“
Hurts, Mike, but a head
wound would have hurt more.” She smiled as she finished and his
face turned serious. “You are too serious, Mike. You are.” She
pulled her gloves from her hands and stuffed them into her pocket.
“Let's see her.”

She followed Mike over to a stall in
the barn that had been reinforced with steel panels and closed
in.

“
Arlene is in there with
her,” Mike sighed. “She says she was cut, but it looks like the
plague to me. Little black veins running away from it. It looks
bad, but she swears it was a scratch... I thought, well, maybe you
might know. I guess some infections can look that way?” He raised
his voice at the end and turned his statement into a
question.

“
Sometimes... It depends on
the circumstances and the amount of infection. I can't say without
seeing it... You have her quarantined?”

“
We had to... Safety,” Mike
said. He looked guilty.

“
Don't feel guilty, Mike,
if she doesn't have it we'll know. If she does have it we can't
take the chance she dies and turns. She, anyone, could do a great
deal of damage before we could kill them,” Jessie said. She reached
the door and waited for Mike to open it.

Bluechip

Bear and Beth

The room was white. The walls, the
door, the trim around the door, even the trim at the floor was
white. The steel bed that was bolted to the wall: White. The
blankets, the sheets, everything. After a while it had begun to
drive Bear crazy and so he had had to put it out of his mind and
concentrate on something else: Escape and freedom.

There was little noise.
Little, but it was there. Routine sounds, or sounds that he had
come to associate with the word routine, the
feel
of routine. The guards came
around every so often, if asked to guess, he would say it was an
hourly schedule, it felt that often. He never saw them, only heard
them. Hard heeled shoes, or most probably boots, on the vinyl tiles
of the hallway. Hard, but they had to be rubber because they
squeaked from time to time. Leather didn't do that. Leather
creaked, and he had heard none of that at all. They stopped
somewhere about a half second away from his door, stayed for about
a second and a half, and then moved on to his door, stayed the same
second and a half and then they were gone.

He had no idea what they saw or did in
that second and a half of stopping outside his door, or the stop
before his for that matter. There were no windows. No cameras, or
at least none he could see.