The Zombie Plagues Dead Road: The Collected books. (76 page)

“
It was a smart ass black
boy, Baby.” She told him. “He was with a bunch of them hippie type
nigger lovers... They did it. I told him, Baby. I told him, but I
couldn't do nothin',” she was crying now. “I tried to wake you up.
Baby,
I tried
to
wake you up! They wouldn't have tried it if you was up and awake, I
know that,” she said through her tears. Her face hurt and it was
already hard to move her jaw.
Damn if he
hadn't busted it,
she thought.

“
You let some....” He
started, but Amanda never heard it. A little vein inside her head
chose that second to burst. Starlight seemed to bloom inside her
head. A second later everything went black.

Zac watched her topple over. A perfect
flood of blood came from both nostrils as she went. Her head hit
the pavement with a solid thunk. Her right hand fluttered like a
tiny bird caught in a trap, nails clicking against the pavement and
then stopped. The blood began to pool around her head. Thick and
dark red in the failing light.

“
Goddammit,” Zac said
softly. He sagged down to the roadway. He sat there for some time
as the sun continued to sink and the darkness came on; finally he
heaved himself to his feet.

“
A smart ass black boy,” he
said to himself. “Now how many of them am I likely to
find?”

He staggered over to the SUV, glancing
briefly at Amanda as he went by. The pool of blood was enormous,
and the ants were already on her. He shook off the cold chill that
ran down his spine, levered himself into the drivers seat of the
SUV and started it up.

The back door was still open but
slammed shut when it bounced off one of the couches as Zac took off
down the road.

“
A smart ass black boy,” he
told himself again. “Now we'll see about that.”

~

It happened so fast, Mike told himself
later, that no one had had any time to react. They had heard
nothing. Two watches were posted, Nellie and Tim on opposite ends
of the circle. Nellie facing the highway, Tim looking back towards
the mall.

Molly had just stood up to walk over
and talk to Nellie when the shot had come. The flat, loud crack of
a high powered rifle. Mike's head spun hard as it automatically
turned at the sound and tried to duck at the same time. And he saw
Nellie falling and falling, and it seemed as though there were a
fog around her head for a second and then it was gone, and in the
silence he could hear blood pattering to the pavement.

Molly screamed and started to run, but
Ronnie tackled her to the ground. Chloe and Bear were up, machine
pistols in their hands, crouched low, running for that side of the
circle. Mike, Josh and Tim ran behind them, crouched over as they
ran for the truck where Nellie lay on the ground.

Mike made the truck, peered up over the
fender, and the man was in plain sight. A fat Biker looking type
standing next to an SUV pulled down onto the side of the
highway.

The man began to raise his rifle once
more when all four of them opened up on him. He dropped instantly
but no one stopped firing. The machine pistols chewed holes through
the thin sheet metal of the SUV, blew the windows out and flattened
both tires on the side facing them.

The fire power lasted only a brief few
seconds, but all of them had emptied their clips. They had all shot
a second clip home before they had stopped to even draw a breath,
but the momentum had ceased, and they all stood silently a moment
longer, their eyes moving over the biker where he lay beside the
truck.

Mike forced himself to look over at
Nellie. The back of her head was gone. Her eyes were open and
clear, as if she could see him, as if she were looking back at him.
“He's dead,” he said to Ronnie.

Molly fought her way free, scratching
and biting, and ran to Nellie. She stopped just short of her,
looked down at her for a moment, and then collapsed next to her
sobbing. She pulled her toward her and tried to cradle her head,
but looked down at the blood and gore that covered her hands as
they slipped off her body.

Her own machine pistol hung at her
side. She jerked it up quickly and fumbled with the
safety.

“
Molly,” Mike said in a
loud startled voice.

The tears flooded from her eyes.
“Fucker killed me too,” she whispered.

“
Molly,” Mike said again.
He started for her.

“
This whole world is so
crazy,” Molly said. She finally got the safety off. It seemed like
minutes to Mike as he replayed it later, but it was only a split
second from the time she had wrenched the pistol free to where she
had thumbed off the safety.

He had thought...
She means to make sure Nellie doesn't come back.
Hard, but necessary.
But Nellie wasn't
going to come back. That was clear. His feet were moving. Carrying
him toward her. Her eyes lifted and met his own briefly, and
something there told him a different story, and he knew, but
knowing did him no good. It didn't speed his feet, or help the
words from his mouth any faster.

Molly bought the barrel up, pulled the
strap from her shoulder and just as quickly reversed the barrel,
putting it in her mouth. She looked at Mike once more.
Blinked.

“
Jesus Christ,
Molly!”
Mike screamed.

She pulled the trigger.

The Nation

Candace's Journal

I've been too busy the last few days to
sit down and write. This whole place has a pretty empty feeling.
Mike, Ronnie, Annie, Tim, Molly and Nellie are gone into the great
out there. And almost everyone else has gone to the lake fishing.
The lake is out in the valley to the north. Quite a way, and it's
really more of an expedition. We heard from them by radio. They are
fishing the lake empty.

We also heard from two more groups that
are on their way in. Both will be here tomorrow, and so I guess the
empty feeling won't last long. And, one group is bringing Annie
back to us. We were pretty worried about that until Annie explained
it. Sandy is already worried about a woman they are bringing in.
She lost her arm to a zombie. I talked to Bob about that, and
Annie. It seems like any real concern is past, but Bob wants her
off by herself and watched. Quarantined really. I was not surprised
that Sandy agreed with him. The rest of us talked about it. We
don't know what to make of it.

I wish we had heard from the others,
but at least we got some information from Annie. Being honest here,
it didn't make me feel any better. And the three of us, Pats, Lilly
and I talked it over. It doesn't make any of us feel better. Bob
was quiet. But Bob is always quiet. He'll think it over and come
out with what he really feels in a few days. I guess we all will.
It's scary.

It will be awhile before we see the
others again. And my big news, which everyone knows except Mike and
the others who went, will have to remain unshared for now. I'm
having twins. Two little devils inside of me. That's why, Sandy
says, I'm getting so big so fast.

Mike will be so happy. It's funny, I've
never felt that confidant about a man before to say something like
that. But he will be happy. I know he will. I don't have any doubt
about it at all.

Me, Pats and Lilly are cooking meals
since there are so few of us here. I'm kind of lonely but pretty
happy despite that. At odds, I know. I don't mean I'm happy to be
lonely. I guess I am missing my man even with the happiness, and
more than a little worried about what they are facing out
there.

When Annie gets back, probably tomorrow
some time, and Molly, who knows when, there will be six of us. Six
of us! I only mean those of us that are close. We came here from
Watertown together. But I don't mean that is all of us that are
pregnant. Counting in my head, without really knowing them all, I
come up with fifteen of us total. That is a lot of pregnant power!
Molly's baby will be so beautiful... A little her, a little Ronnie.
Pat's too... They will be like siblings, really. It will be so
cool.

I will try to write more often. This is
for you. I love you, Babies.

God please take care of our loved ones.
And thank you for Lilly who keeps reminding me about
you.

The Dead

Amanda came awake in the road. The heat
was gone from the day, and the coldness from the roadway seemed to
be seeping into her body. She was cold, so cold, but her head felt
better. It was strangely light, and she wondered what had been
wrong with it before. The thought wouldn't hold, obviously it
wasn't important. It didn't hurt any longer, and so it couldn't be
all that important.

She lay quietly and
listened to the absolute silence of the night. No sounds came to
her ears at all. It was eerie, she decided, and unnerving.
Too quiet,
her mind
added. She started to become concerned, but her mind shifted away
from it quickly and began to wonder about what had
happened.

It was a blank at
first.
An argument...
She repeated it, as though repeating it would make the
information come...
An argument...
Sometimes, when she got really stoned, it was the
only way she could think. Slow it down and repeat it until it
finally came.
An argument...
Was she still stoned now, she asked
herself?

She didn't think so. She
didn't feel she was, she just couldn't get the information to come.
Maybe it didn't matter, she decided, and that was when it came.
Zac...
Zac had broken her jaw...
No...
It had
felt
like Zac had broken
her jaw... It must not be because... Something touched her
nose.

She started to hold her breath and that
was when she realized her breath was not there to hold. She had no
breath at all. And her eyes were closed. Did they need to be open?
Hadn't they been open?

She didn't know.
And,
sonofabitch
,
they would not open, and that didn't matter because she wasn't
breathing...
Not Breathing!
She screamed inside her head. Something touched
her nose again, moved up and her eyelids were pulled apart by rough
fingers. A red film seemed to make everything look weirdly
distorted. A face, inches away... Eyes glowing red in the black
night. The eyes studied her and as they had her vision had begun to
clear.

~

Donita was squatted before her, her
feet flat on the roadway. Her body bare, breasts mere suggestions
on her bony frame. Hands dangling between her thighs. Face angled
down at her. Her lips pulled back from her yellowed teeth. The skin
on the face was stretched tight, part of one cheekbone poked
through the flesh, yellow bone bathed in blue moonlight gleamed.
Her thick black hair hung over her forehead, stirred on a breeze
that worked its way across the roadway, her thin, skeletal hand
came up and pushed the hair away.

She had come upon the others about to
take her. They had already begun, one arm gnawed, the hand missing.
Donita had needed to say nothing. The army of the dead behind her
filled the roadway and back into the trees. They had let her go and
run. They had run because Donita allowed them to run.

She had looked down at the woman,
studied her, and wondered why she had not known about her, scented
her and the other dead on the air. No answer, except, sometimes it
was that way. Sometimes, most times, she knew all there was to
know. Others, like this time, she simply didn't.

Donita continued to work at the mass of
dried blood that covered the woman's eyes, sealing them shut. The
woman moved slightly, a buzzing coming from her throat, and then
her eyes opened.

~

Amanda tried to scream, but she could
pull no air. A buzzing came from her vocal chords instead. Angry
bees disturbed in the hive. The woman leaning over her opened her
mouth.

“
Come,”
the woman said in a rusty voice, not much more
than a croak. Her fingers reached out, swiped away some more of the
dried blood from Amanda's eyes. They opened slightly wider.
“Come,”
she said
again.

On The Road

Bear looked over Nellie and Molly's
bodies. He turned to Mike and nodded. “They're all right. They wont
come back,” he said quietly. He helped Ronnie to roll them into a
tarp.

Darkness had come down full. They could
hear the zombies in the pit, excited by the fire, the smell of
blood, what ever else excited zombies, Mike thought. They moaned
and scrabbled against the steep embankment trying to get out. They
settled in to watch through the night. Over on the side of the
highway the SUV burst into flames and burned through the
night.

September 21st

They next morning they buried Nellie
and Molly in the field behind the store. Chloe had spoken the words
that no one else felt able to speak.

The SUV was a smoking hulk on the side
of the road, but the biker was gone. Bear, Mike and Ronnie,
followed a drag trail away from the SUV and into the woods on the
other side of the highway. Machine pistols off their straps and in
their hands. The forest was quiet. No birds whistled and called to
one another, nothing moved. They followed the drag marks nearly a
quarter mile back into the woods before they came across the
body.