The Zombie Plagues Dead Road: The Collected books. (31 page)

I am trying hard to keep myself in
check as well. People seem to expect a lot from me. I know that. I
see that. I do everything that I can do, but I never know what is
right or what is not. We’re sleeping in a field. Better than a
cave? Some think so. Soon a longhouse?

Lilly ~ March 25th

The last several days have been really
hard. So many crazy people.

We have two more women. I don’t have to
worry about either of these two around Tom. Not that I do. I’m
really not that insecure.

I was one of the ones today, I mean the
ones with some responsibility. I used to laugh at that. But it made
me feel good today to be entrusted.

I drove one of the trucks. Mike gave me
some juice. It was nice. Sometimes I think he thinks of me as a
little girl. Maybe that will change? I Hope so. I’m almost the same
age as Candace after all.

Goodbye cave, hello road.

Candace ~ March 25th

It’s late. Mike is sleeping. I’m about
to be; I just wanted to write this down.

We escaped today. Really that’s what we
did. It was bad back there, but we are no longer there. I’m glad
for that.

We may have a lot of traveling ahead,
or we may not. We made good time tonight, but in places the road or
the ground was a mess. We passed a bridge that was embedded in the
ground at a ninety degree angle. It goes straight up if you can
imagine that, two lanes of perfect blacktop shooting up about fifty
feet into the air. Who knows how much of it is buried in the
ground?

I am so tired but so glad we are on our
way. And safe as well. I’m glad we’re safe. Who knows where we will
end up? I can’t think about it now. I’m just grateful to be alive,
not caught by those men back there.

I’m going to stop writing and crawl
under the blankets with my man. I’m glad we’re all here and
okay…

Patty ~ March 25th

We are free. Mike told me what those
bastards intended to do. Unbelievable, or it was until I talked
with Molly and Susan. We, Ronnie and Tim and I were over on the
North side. They would have gotten us eventually. Maybe even could
have, but they didn’t. They didn’t, and here we are camped out in a
field of hay and Watertown is long behind us. The people I love are
safe, and tonight that’s enough to be right with the world, as
messed up as it all is…

Tom ~ March 25th

I see so many people writing tonight. I
guess it’s been that kind of day.

I thought it would be better to stay. I
was wrong. I had no idea how bad things could get. I must have been
looking at some alternative world, not the real one. I’ve been like
that all through my life. Overly Goddamn rigid! But I’m learning. I
have already learned a few things.

I’m not good with this journal stuff,
but when I looked around and saw so many others writing, I decided
it didn’t matter. It’s like an outpouring of some kind. We are
free, really free tonight. It’s unbelievable, but it’s true. What
else is there to wish for?

I have Lilly. I’m in better shape than
I’ve been in for a long time. I can sleep at night. I mean real
sleep, not that toss and turn stuff I did in the old world. And
I’ll do that later on tonight. Meanwhile, I have one of the first
watches. I don’t mind. You know, I don’t pray much, but thank you
God.

Sandy ~ March 25th

I have never had three days like this
in my life before. Emotional highs and lows. I was positive we
would be killed. I know that is morbid, but I was. I could see no
way out; I mean you have to fight, right? I am not upset that we
ran, but I would’ve fought. Honor is more important than life to
me. But it was not my decision. I had a say, but my say was in the
minority. In fact, it seemed like I was the only one.

Another thing happened. It was
horrible, then beautiful, then horrible, and now unexpectedly
beautiful again… I think. I won’t write personal, personal things
here though. Even so, I had a chance at something, but I couldn’t
do it, couldn’t let myself feel it, so I lost it, but I have
another chance it seems. The world is a funny place.

One more thing, just to remind myself.
A certain person who thinks she’s so perfect, can do no wrong, she
seems to look down on me. But today I saw the way she looked at
someone else… Another woman. I know what I saw from both of them,
but I don’t think either of them knows it about each other. My
point is, how can she look down on me? How can that be?

Nell ~ March 25th

We made it, which is the really big
news for all of us. We’ve made it.

I don’t know where we are going. I
don’t think anyone else does either, but we are free of living
under siege.

It was such a good plan. If he was free
and I liked men, I would go for Mike. He’s not your typical man. I
see the way he treats Candace. Of course Candace is the type of
woman who would not take any other sort of man… Or woman? I think
so.

But it’s not just Candace but all women
he treats that way. He treats men the same way. He has natural
abilities when it comes to people. He is a leader. Anyway, the plan
worked perfectly.

In other news, we are not together like
I had hoped. I had written that I had finally talked to Sandy but
she denied everything, seemed really embarrassed. So was I. I
thought maybe I was wrong, and I guessed I must have been, but
that’s the way the world is. Sometimes we are wrong. What I saw may
have been only curiosity, something else, I told myself. But, it
turns out I was right the first time. I’m getting ahead of
myself.

When she shot me down I was upset, but
I went with it. What else could I do? But they say there is a
reason for everything, and three nights ago I found out why. I met
Molly.

Molly was one of the women that escaped
from those men. She had a really bad time with them, went through
some bad things, but that didn’t influence who she is, or what she
is. She is still herself in other words; the other part of that
explanation went much deeper.

She wanted me to know that she had
always been attracted to women, not men, that nothing they did to
her changed her from some other woman into the one I was meeting.
It was important to her for me to understand that. I guess it was
important to me too.

She says she has known who she was
since junior high. It was amazing to me to meet someone with that
kind of confidence. We were talking about real things, heart and
mind things, within just a few minutes.

She and Susan had just not
clicked. They like each other, but not on that level. But Susan
knows who she is too, and has for a long while. I feel like I am
the only one who had to take the long way around to finding out
that I am who I am, or admitting to myself who I am… I guess there
is a big difference in those two statements. I was hiding out for
so long. Living in this little city. My life was so structured. I
was married to a man, for God’s sake. Molly was something
else.
Is
something
else.

The next morning, at breakfast, she
caught me looking and that was that. We were sitting outside
talking a little while later, and she just kissed me. Stopped all
of my words and nearly stopped my heart too. And then she smiled,
and I kissed her back.

Sandy came out of the cave a few
minutes later, saw us and she just knew. I could tell by the way
she looked at us. She was so mad at me. I felt guilty too, but she
had said no. She had said that I was mistaken, wrong about her. So
not a good way to find out that I was right. Sandy had lived in her
shell longer than I had. In the end, we talked it out. We’re okay.
We worked it out.

Molly and I are together. It was just
that fast, and it’s good. I feel like I’ve never felt. And we’re
free now. And last, my heart is lighter. I saw Susan and Sandy
talking and laughing together all night tonight. It made me feel
better. I think everyone has seen Molly and me together, but as of
tonight we are actually together, as in living together, as in
partners, as in sleeping in the same space together... figuring out
where we're going to go... together.

I’m not going to waste any more of my
life. I won’t say love. Love takes time, but it is so close that it
may as well be.

Mike ~ March 25th Late Night

It’s late, but we’ve finally settled
down for the night. We have tents, food, and of course we can build
a fire for warmth. The basic stuff, right? I think so.

We drove two hours into the darkness
and then pulled off into a big, empty field. We’re in a small town
somewhere north of Syracuse. If anyone is here, we haven’t seen
them. There’s a small general store. It’s wood framed and in
horrible shape, but it’s standing, or most of it is, and the canned
stuff is all there. So if there was someone here, they never
touched anything inside the store area.

Animals have been in and
out. Anything that could be eaten has been. Nearly everything’s
been gnawed on. We put together a good meal with canned stuff
though. We took as much as we could carry in the trucks to top off
what we had. I say
we,
but it’s really Janet who’s done the work, gotten people
motivated to do something. She’s good at that. A good organizer:
meals, children, lists, you name it. She’s one of the most ‘on the
ball’ people I’ve ever met. I wish I had half of her
confidence.

We’re too far away to pick up anything
on the radios from Watertown. Even so, we’ve picked up bits and
pieces of conversation as we’ve traveled. Not enough to know where
it’s from, but some people somewhere are communicating.

We discussed big cities - Syracuse is
not far away - and decided against them. All that concrete and
steel, people. Disease alone could be a problem.

Almost everyone approves of what we did
today. Approves, that’s a funny word to use, but it’s what it is.
There were a few; I could sense it, who wanted to fight. The two
new women, Molly and Susan... I shouldn’t try to read minds
though.

But I do understand it. And if I'm
honest, I wanted to fight too. It was my first impulse, but that
sobered me up, the fact that it was an impulse. No matter how I
looked at it, after I cut out the emotional response, it made no
sense at all. Even so, I find myself second guessing it. I’m not
entirely sure I’ve done the right thing talking everyone into going
on the road. It could go bad. It could be bad. But I tell myself
maybe I’m just unaccustomed to leading.

What if there were others that were
being forced to be there? Hell, there probably were. I remember
seeing a woman heave a gasoline bomb from the roof on the square.
Was she with one or the other side or fighting to be free? No way
to know, and could we have won if we had fought them? Could we have
helped those people if it did turn out that they needed help, or
would we simply have gotten ourselves and them killed trying? Or
captured? And we know what that would have meant for the women in
our group. And the men? Probably would've just killed us. I did
what I thought was best. No, I won't second guess it, I did the
right thing.

Where are we going? I don’t know. We
haven’t had the time to talk it over. And on a personal level it
matters to me what Candace wants to do, where she wants to
go.

Tom: I don’t know what to think about
Tom. Sometimes I feel like he’s fine with me... We’ll be fine. And
I wasn’t all that sure that we could ever get to that place for
awhile. And, I’m still not always convinced. Sometimes I see him
looking at Candace and I think, if there isn’t something, some sort
of feeling still there, then there is some sort of resentment
there. He’ll look at Candace then me; one reminds him of the other,
and not in a good way. And, you know what? I think I’m being
excessively hyper critical. I’m reading too much into it. I just
don’t know. I want to trust him. Hell, he’s smart. We need him. Is
that a reason to walk the line? Does that make me any better than
any of those fakes in the old world that I hated? I don’t think it
does. I’m just trying to be real. I guess I’ll keep it real with
him, but I’ll have to keep an eye on him because I’m just not
sure.

Bob: Bob is straight forward. Bob wants
the Nation restored. Bob wants all the native peoples back together
living in peace. But where are they? He believes they’ll find us.
Maybe they will. He believes in what he calls the Rainbow Tribe;
People that feel the call but aren’t completely native, or maybe
have no Native blood at all. But they want the life, and he
believes they will come to where ever the spirit leads him. What
can I say to that? It could be. For all I know that is exactly the
way it’s supposed to be. And maybe Jesus will show up too… I don’t
mean that sarcastically. A month ago I thought I would spend the
balance of my life in Watertown. I liked my life. I didn’t see
this. I didn’t believe this when people said it might happen. But
how often has some whack job predicted the end of the Earth? Too
often.

Even so, here I am. I’m leading people.
Other people. They believe I’m capable of doing that. You couldn’t
have sold me that story a few weeks ago, that’s for sure. So, Bob?
Could be his dream will become a reality. I only know he’s level
headed, pretty solid, and he knows more about surviving this kind
of world than all the rest of us put together because of his native
background.