The Zombie Plagues Dead Road: The Collected books. (68 page)

“
In the woods too,” Bear
asked.

“
No... Little town down the
road,” Mike answered.

Bear shook his head. “Too much that
doesn't make sense. Look, I'll take my truck and Bill and me will
start on the other side and get this cleared out... Maybe then you
can sit down and explain all of this to us, because I'm
lost.”

“
I'll explain what I can,”
Mike agreed. “What about these zombies?”

“
Dead,” Billy said. “We
just call them dead... They're gone. All that shit you think about
them? Shit you got from TV, movies, even that CDC bullshit...
Untrue. They are smart.” He looked around at the cars and trucks.
“They did this. I have no doubt they did, but they like the odds in
their favor and they ain't at all in their favor right now. Like
this. So the one that got away, any others there might have been;
long gone. They ain't like us. They can run for miles... Don't
tire... How is it you haven't dealt with them yourself?”

“
That requires a lot of
explanation,” Mike said.

Bear shook his head. “Squash it for
now. Let's get these vehicles moved and then we got to sit down.
You don't want to just come out here from the woods, or wherever
you been, not knowing what the score is.” He turned and walked off
through the woods without waiting for Mike to finish. Billy
hesitated for a second.

“
Bear don't waste many
words. We lost people yesterday like he said. He took it personal,”
he sighed. “We'll be working our way to you.” He turned and walked
away.

Mike stood for a second watching the
two men and then turned to Molly and Tim. “Are we all three okay...
I mean nothing got you? Nothing got me.”

“
No,” Tim said.

“
Just what splashed on my
face,” Molly said. She was hunting through her side pack. She came
out with a pack of disinfectant wipes. She worked on her face and
then looked at Mike and Tim.

“
Looks fine to me,” Mike
said.

“
You feel alright, right?”
Tim asked.

“
Yeah... Yeah. I was
worried about that.” She tucked the wipes back into her side
pack.

“
Come on,” Mike said.
“They'll be worried.”

~

Cammy held her head as she sipped. “I
feel like shit,” Beth croaked. She cleared her throat and took a
deeper sip. “God... Feel like a baby... Bad... Disconnected.” She
looked at the stump of her forearm where it ended in bandages.
“Hurts a little.”

Cammy laughed in disbelief. “It's me
and you, if somebody chopped off half of my arm I think it would
hurt like hell.”

Beth let a crooked smile cross her
lips. “Yeah... I figured it would. I expected it to. But it
doesn't. That's not bullshit. Maybe it will later on. My head is
still all fuzzy though.”

“
That's the morphine,”
Cammy told her. “It'll wear off later on.”

Beth nodded. “Did we get all of
them?”

Cammy nodded. “All but one. Bear said
one got away...” She looked at her speculatively.

“
What,” Beth
asked.

“
Some newcomers... Came
from someplace deep in the woods, Bear said. Guess they have been
hiding out all this time or something... He and Billy are helping
to move a bunch of cars the dead blocked the road with. An old
logging trail.”

“
Yeah?”

“
Yeah... Bear said it looks
like they have been ambushing people here for a while. Taking the
cars and dumping them back in the woods so no one
suspects.”

“
Christ.”

“
Yeah,” Cammy agreed.
“Christ is right... So, anyways, they're out there in the frigging
woods moving cars around so these people can get into here... Bear
says they're gonna sit down and talk then.”

Beth pushed herself up with her one
good arm. Her face turned pale.

Cammy eased her back onto
the pillows. “I told you, Baby... Hurts now,
huh?
”

“
Jesus,” Beth
breathed.

“
Yeah... You want
Morphine... Got plenty of it,” Cammy told her.

She took several deep breaths and most
of the color returned to her face. “No... I don't want to be all
fuzzy... I'll sit here a bit and get my breath back. But when they
talk I want to be there too. Just give me some aspirin or
something,” Beth told her.

“
Jesus, Beth. You don't
take a goddamn aspirin when you get your arm taken off.” Cammy
said.

“
You do if you want your
mind to be right,” Beth disagreed. “Besides, it wasn't even half my
arm... Come on... Aspirin... Non aspirin... I don't care which.
Just something to take the edge off.”

Cammy snorted. “Jesus... You and Bear,
the toughest goddamn people in the world. You sure you don't have
balls too?”

Beth looked at her and burst out
laughing. “Ow. Ow. That hurts too.”

“
Here,” Cammy
said.

“
Better make it four or
five... God... Don't make me laugh no more either.”

“
Sorry,” Cammy told her as
she gave her a handful of aspirin. “Six,” She said.

“
Sure it won't make me
fuzzy?”

“
I think it will take more
than that to make you fuzzy,” Cammy told her.

Beth laid back into the pillows. “Back
in the woods hiding, huh?”

“
I really don't know... But
what else would they be doing back in the woods?”

Beth nodded. “I guess we'll know in a
little while.”

Cammy nodded. “I guess we will,” she
agreed.

~

It was late morning by the time that
the cars and trucks were moved or pushed back far enough for the
three Jeeps to get past and travel the rest of the way down into
the old campgrounds.

Molly had fired up the radio and called
Josh when they had got back to the Jeeps. He had been there
wondering about the gunfire and she had told him what they had run
into along with promising that they would still like to meet them
but that it would probably be later in the day before they did.
They gathered together in the camping area to talk before they went
to talk to the others.

“
Doesn't look the same at
all,” Tim said.

Mike nodded. But to him it did look the
same. It was imprinted in his mind. Maybe in ten years it would
begin to look different to him.

“
So it's not the same
people for real,” Ronnie said.

“
Guess not,” Mike agreed.
“I don't know about these people at all... I suppose we'll go
through the same feeling each other out thing with both parties
then.”

Molly raised her eyebrows.

Mike shrugged. “I guess I hadn't
thought about how it would be... I mean, I did think how it would
be but this isn't it.”

Molly laughed. “Honey, nobody every
really has it figured out, do they? So we fall back a little and
take it slower. Play it by ear... We did discuss bringing others
back... Meeting others... It's just sooner rather than
later.”

Mike smiled. “You should be in charge
of this mess instead of me. You handle it much better.”

She laughed again. “Uh huh. But I
handle it a lot better because I'm not in charge, you are. It's
your ass on the line, not mine. Makes it a lot easier... But it
sure would have been nice to just take your compliments and run
with them.”

“
So we go in and sit down
and we talk, but we all decide later. And if you have a question…
If I don't ask something, bring it up, okay?” Mike looked around
from face to face.

They walked across the short distance
to the road leading out of the park and then uphill to where the
others trucks were parked. Bear stood, arms folded across his chest
waiting for them. His eyes locked on Ronnie's. “Brother,” Bear
said.

“
I'm not down with that
shit at all,” Ronnie told him.

“
What
shit
are you talking about?” Bear
asked him.

“
That Brother shit... Mike
can't be your brother? Wrong color? No. I'm not your brother just
because we wear the same skin. I don't work that way at all.” He
leaned closer to Bear. “ And I don't really fuck with people that
are on that shit... Just so you know. So we don't have any
confusion or mystery about it,” he said in a low voice.

“
Suit yourself,” Bear said.
They glared at each other.

“
I usually do,” Ronnie told
him.

Mike came closer to them and looked
from Ronnie to Bear and then back to Ronnie. “I guess we came over
to say thanks... I appreciate the help you gave us getting out of
there... I guess I never really thought about running into
something like that.”

Bear finally broke his eyes away from
Ronnie. “Why is that... I mean, where have you been for the last
six months where you didn't have to deal with the same shit the
rest of us have out here? It makes no sense to me that you would
just come driving out of the woods, I mean that road don't go
anywhere else that I can see... So, what, you went camping and woke
up to a changed world or something?” He refolded his arms across
his chest once more.

Mike looked around the clearing, which
was really not more than a wide spot in the road that lead down
into the campgrounds. A few hundred feet back a truck sat closer to
the side of the road. A tarp was draped across the top, fallen over
the windshield. The people they lost, he thought. He leaned back
against the bumper of the truck he stood next to. “We have been
back in the woods... But there isn't anybody here who didn't go
through some shit to get where we are. We built ourselves a place
back there. It's a little more complicated than that, but we made a
safe place... We came out now because there are a few things we
need. We expect to grow, we have already added a few to our ranks
that have found us on the VHF, FM and CB bands and walked in to us.
I expect that will grow. In fact, when we left, I know there were a
few parties on the way in to us. So I would say we'll grow more
while we're gone.”

He paused for a second. “We were up
north... I'm sure there were dead there too, but they didn't bother
us, or we didn't see them. We had no run ins with them until we
were just about here. In this very park and had a problem with some
people that came at us... Another long story. But then we lost some
of our dead... We had heard about the possibility. Even then it was
on the CB bands. We just didn't believe it, since we've been out
there we've heard a lot more on the radios... New York...
Houston... LA.... bad stuff.”

“
It's worse than just
that,” Bear said. “They're everywhere. I mean you hear about those
larger places, but everywhere you go they're there... Die? You come
back on their side of it.”

“
Head shots,” Billy said.
He had wandered over from under the hood of one of the trucks. He
wiped his hands on a rag as he talked. “That's all that will kill
them. You don't want to make a mistake with that, or wait, or
anything like that. Head shot.” He nodded.

“
You can't go anywhere in
this country where they aren't,” Bear said.

Mike nodded. “Well, that doesn't change
our position... We still have to come out for supplies... The
larger we get the more often we'll have to come out
too.”

“
Then they'll kill you
eventually. Or other factions will, because that's the other
problem. It isn't just the Dead you have to contend with. You think
I have a hard edge to me? A little cynical even. Well you're right.
I do. But I'm alive. I'm alive out here in the world too, not back
there in the woods hiding out somewhere.” Bear said.

“
Uh huh,” Mike said. “So
you're just gonna stay out here until they hunt you down and kill
you? And you consider that smart?”

Bear laughed. A heavy rumble in his
wide chest. “Is that an invitation?”

Mike shrugged. “It could be.” He turned
and looked at Ronnie. “But you'd have to get along with
Ronnie.”

“
Right hand man,” Bear
asked. He looked at Ronnie.

“
No,” Mike said. “Just my
friend whom I happen to discuss everything with and to me that's
more... A right hand man can be replaced. Ronnie can't be. And you
make it sound like shit on your shoe or something. Just the way you
say it.”

“
I see what I see,” Bear
said.

“
I think you see something
that it isn't there,” Mike said.

The silence held long enough for the
bird noise to seep back in to their consciousness.

“
Bear, what did you do in
the old world,” Molly asked.

“
Steel work,” Bear said
without hesitation.

“
You walking around up
there thirty stories in the air,” Nellie asked. “Sorry,” she added.
“But you're a big man.”

Bear nodded. “But I'm light on my
feet... You should dance with me some time.”

Nellie laughed and then Molly joined
in. A second later Annie and Tim joined in. Bear grinned back at
them.

“
I did it since I was a
kid... Come off the reservation and had an in through my uncles. I
was eighteen out of school walking steel.”