The Zombie Plagues Dead Road: The Collected books. (47 page)

“
She didn't have her gun?
You didn't remind her to take her gun? She took it off, Man. Most
of us did. It was the end of the day for Christs sake. And everyone
was using that area all day and into the dark. Nothing happened.
Nothing at all. The goddamned dogs were right there, never growled,
barked, nothing. Your fault? Might as well say my fault. All of
us.” He touched Mike's shoulder. Mike turned his eyes up from the
man.

“
If Patty had gone back
there, I wouldn't have thought to go with her at all. I wouldn't
have done anything different from what you did, Man. Nothing. I
would've wished I had. Who in fuck wouldn't in hindsight? I
would've, but I wouldn't have. There's just no way you could have
known, Man,” Ronnie said.

“
Still,” Mike
said.

“
Fuck
still,
” Ronnie said. “For real. There
isn't a thing you could've done. Not a fuckin' thing. And this
guy?” He looked down where the man lay. The ruined gray-pink of his
face tilted up into the rain. “This guy's nothing now. Dead meat.
The wolves will get him... or the wild dogs, or a bear, woodchucks,
or one of those fuckin' Zombies. Hey! Could be. He's all done. You
got to be concerned with Candace now. Fuck this guy. Fuck him right
straight to hell,” Ronnie spat.

Mike didn't speak, but his eyes came up
from the corpse and fixed on Ronnie's own. He nodded.

“
Let's go, Man, before you
get sick from the cold. Me too. Then what good will we be? Come on;
let's go,” Ronnie said. He turned and walked away and Mike went
with him.

~

They slogged their way through the
muddy field and back to the area under the steel roof. The morning
was half gone. They were going nowhere today. Bob was working on a
map spread out on a wooden table top and held down with broken
chunks of cinder blocks. Ronnie walked over to him, and Mike
followed.

~

“
Is this how sisters are?”
Candace asked.

“
I don't know, I never had
one,” Patty said, “I know I never had a friend like you
though.”

“
I never have either. Or a
man like Mike. Or a life like this... I mean, we're all living a
life that couldn't even have been possible to live unless this had
happened.” She shook her head slightly where it laid against
Patty's shoulder. Patty smoothed her hair away from her face and
held her loosely with one arm like a child.

“
It's like that for me too.
Ronnie is... he isn't even the guy I knew before all this happened.
We weren't even interested in each other like that. I had no idea
what he was really like, and I never would have.” She fixed her
eyes on Candace's own and held them. “Are you going to be okay,
okay?” she asked.

“
Yep,” she sniffled, “If
he... If he,” her voice hitched.

“
I know, I know,” Patty
said.

“
It would've made me crazy,
Patty. It would have,” Candace told her.

“
Maybe, but not for long.
You're too strong. You would've gotten past it. Just like you'll
get past this,” Patty told her.

“
People say that, but how
do you know it? How do you know if you will or you won't?” Candace
asked.

“
It's in you. You're
strong. That guy took nothing at all that was really you. That
can't be done, you can't take something that really is you inside,
who you really are... what you really are. I know. I got past it
too. You'll get past it,” Patty said.

“
You?” Candace turned into
her and looked up into Patty's eyes. “How? What or when?” she
asked? “If... if you want to talk about it, that is.”

“
I was a little girl... my
uncle. He was living with us for a while,” her voice thickened. “I
kept it a secret. I didn't want anyone to know. He thought that
meant I would never tell. He did it again. My mother didn't believe
me until I described what he did... made me do. She went and woke
him up. That was one of the few times when my mother scared me. She
woke him up with a baseball bat in her hands. She never touched
him, but she told him she would be telling my father when he came
home from work and he better get out before she started in on him
herself.”

“
He started to deny it,
called me a liar, and she went ballistic. There was a lamp on the
table; she smashed it with the bat, all over the place. Just
smacked it with the bat. And she told him to say it again. He had
nothing to say, just got up and left.”

“
When she told my dad, he
was crazy at first. Then he came and got me and held me. What I had
hoped that my mother would do, but she hadn't. And he asked me what
I wanted him to do, and I told him to make him leave me alone. He
promised me he would, and he held me until I fell
asleep.”

“
When I woke up the next
morning, the cops were talking to my mother about where my father
had been the night before. She told them he had been home all
night, but, he'd left Candace, put my uncle in the hospital. I
never saw him again, and I didn't feel bad that he got hurt. And I
got over it. Maybe it wasn't the best way for my family to have
handled it, but I got past it. And look, I have a good man... I
have you as well. And, you'll get over this. You will, I know you
will, because you're strong,” she said. Her own eyes were leaking
now. Candace scooted up, folded her into her chest and held
her.

“
I will because I have you,
and I have Mike. I'm lucky to have so much,” she said. She cradled
Patty's head against her chest and kissed her forehead.

“
Jesus,” Patty said, “We're
both crying now.”

Candace laughed, the first laugh she
had had in hours, “So what?” she said, “so what?”

~Donita and the new boy~

The horses were not taking to being
dead. Instead of accepting it, they seemed to be doing everything
they could to actually be dead. Hers had run full speed into the
side of a barn. She had barely jumped free. She had no wish to be
Un-Dead and missing limbs.

She had let the horse wander on its own
after that, but it was clear it was not going to fall under her
dominion as they boys had done. It was a shame too. She was sure it
would work, and she could not understand why it hadn't. Possibly it
was the wrong horse. She had tried too hard, too soon, or maybe the
other horse would work out. But that horse dashed her hopes later
in the day when it simply wandered away and fell into the river.
She and the boy had watched the river water, but the horse did not
come back to the surface. No life she would want to have, eternally
drowning, walking the river bottom looking for a way back up to the
surface.

As darkness fell, she led the boy and
herself into a small town. They had been following the road most of
the day. The horse followed along at his own pace, far behind. His
neck broken, or so it seemed, cocked to one side, and he seemed
unable to lift it from where it hung close to the ground. The horse
wandered after them, eyes rolling, mouth foaming.

The town was empty, at least of people.
She and the new boy hunted rats for an hour or two after dusk. The
rats had done well for themselves: fat, sleek and gray... the size
of a small dog. They had gorged themselves. She had taken some to
the horse, but it hadn't seemed able or willing to
partake.

She had left the horse to its own
wanderings and prowled the town with the new boy. The night made
her feel alive, strong, whole. The boy followed, and they hunted,
killed for the sake of killing, but it was good for the
boy.

When morning came, there was not a
stray cat, dog or rat left alive in the small village, and she was
crazy with blood. They left the village, found an abandoned factory
on the outskirts, and made their way into the dark depths of the
factory as the sun began to rise. They found a spot under a
massive, iron machine that took up most of the ground floor, and
crawled in as twilight overtook them.

~

Bob looked up and smiled as Mike came
over. He had changed into dry clothes and had a cup of hot coffee
in his hand. His eyes betrayed the fact that he had had no sleep
yet, but his face was not quite so rigid and mask like as it had
been for the past several hours. Careful, was the word that came to
Bob's mind. The way he had been holding his face, set just so...
Careful, Bob thought.

But whatever he'd done or faced, he
seemed to be on the other side of it. The whole camp was like that
today, and the rains just seemed to compound the depression that
had settled over them.

A ghost of a smile worked its way
across Mike's face. “What are you up to, Bob?” he asked.

“
Working this out on the
map, Mike. And as close as I can figure, we have to be out of New
York, and most of the way through Pennsylvania. You said three
hundred and fifty miles?” he asked.

“
Yeah, and a few tenths of
a mile,” Mike told him.

“
Well then, we're out of
New York State for sure and somewhere in Pennsylvania, and maybe
even close to being done with that as well. We got West Virginia,
Kentucky and Tennessee to go, but we'll drop into where we want to
be somewhere in Kentucky, then it's just a matter of direction.
Down towards Tennessee and Alabama or over towards the Carolinas
and Georgia, or up into Virginia. The best part of six states, and
a good chunk of the seventh which isn't part of the forever wild
lands, but still pretty much empty. As little as five hundred miles
or as much as seven hundred, depending on where we want to
be.”

“
I'd bet that we are in the
Catskills already, maybe only the foothills, but we have to be in
them. This rain is just hiding the mountains from us. The
Appalachian line is the backbone we'll follow down to the Great
Smoky mountains and the Blue Ridge, all part of the Appalachians.
We'll find those gaps in the Blue Ridge mountains and again by the
Great Smoky mountains. It's just a matter of choice then, where we
want to go in,” he finished.

Mike sipped at his coffee and nodded.
“So, a few days away,” He said.

“
At the most,” Bob
agreed.

“
How's Arlene?” Mike
asked.

“
She's... She's shook up.
Guilt. What the dirty bastard made her do,” Bob said, “David says
she's sleeping on and off. Sharon's been in to see her, so has
Sandy. Just have to work it through. How's Candace? And you?” Bob
asked.

“
Candace is with Patty.
Those two love each other better than sisters. It's what she needs
right now. I think She'll be fine... I just don't know when,” Mike
said.

Ronnie came back in dry clothes and a
cup of coffee of his own. “Bob, Mike,” he said, “What's
doing?”

“
Bobs showing me our
home... and I wish we were there.” He looked out at the gray skies,
the falling rain.

“
Yeah,” Ronnie said, “Janet
asked if you want something to eat. She said...” he trailed off.
Mike looked at him. “She says you should,” he finished.

Mike nodded, “I will. I will. I guess I
will right now. I didn't realize I was even hungry.” He nodded.
“Bob, Ronnie, I'll be back in a bit.” He walked away to where Janet
stood waiting. She embraced him, set him down at a make shift table
and then set a plate of food in front of him.

Ronnie watched for a minute and then
turned to Bob, “So, what were you showing him?” he
asked.

“
Well...” Bob
began.

~

Several people found an excuse to stop
by and see how things were as Mike sat eating. Jeff, Sharon, Sandy
and Susan, Tim and Annie, Nell and Molly. Most were just going on
or coming off posts and had just stopped by to tell him they were
thinking of Candace and hoping she was all right.

“
They were on post all
night?” Mike asked Janet Dove.

“
They've switched on and
off, Mike, but nobody is expecting you to be there. What they are
expecting you to do is get our girl back on her feet. Me as well,
Mike. Me as well,” Janet said. She looked out at the
sky.

“
Funny,” she said after a
few moments of thought, “Used to be you could flip on the T.V. and
have a pretty good idea of how long the weather was going to last,
or what was coming next, for that matter. Now it just happens.
Whatever it is going to be, we'll find out soon enough,” she
said.

Mike had a feeling she had started out
talking about how the weather was and then veered off into
something else. “Bob thinks we're in Pennsylvania,” Mike said.
“Running through the foothills of the Catskills. Which means that
sometime yesterday afternoon we had to have passed close to the
city of Pittsburgh, or Greensboro, and there's a river that we
should have crossed there, but we didn't cross one,” Mike
finished.

“
Things have changed, Mike.
We might have missed what was left of it in the rain. Or, maybe
we've yet to come to it. We don't really even know what side of the
mountains we're on, do we?” She asked.

“
No,” Mike admitted. “But
it's not like we could get completely lost. We should be able to
find our way once this rain lets up... and... and we're on our way
again,” he said.

She patted his hand and then held it
with one of her own, “It'll pass,” she said, “It'll
pass.”