Wormwood Dawn (Episode VI) (2 page)

“That was my mojo,” Jake said. “Not the building.”

From around the access door, a small group of shufflers appeared. There were three of them; rotted, molded, and hungry. They charged, growling, as Toni drew her huge knife. She fearlessly charged them, impaling one through the face, knocking another back with a roundhouse kick to the chest, and spun to stab the other through the top of its head. Then, she calmly walked to the other as it struggled to stand, and thrust her knife into its temple. She wiped off her blade and sheathed it, cracking her neck like a boxer.

“Damn,” Jake said, impressed. “That was hot.”

“MmmHmm,” she said. “Let’s keep going. If I remember right, there’s a sporting goods store nearby. We need to find you a weapon. I can’t do all the work.”

Jake chuckled. “But you’re so good at it,” he said. “And you look damn fine doin’ it. Damn fine…”

Jake peered down the shaft of a carbon arrow he had plucked from the shelf. It was nice and straight, flexible yet tough, and tipped with a nice, razor sharp bladed broadhead. He gathered the rest of them from the display, along with a leather quiver, and turned to the gun counter.

Toni was nearby gathering .44 rounds for her revolvers. He looked over to her briefly before rounding the counter. Almost everything was gone. The good semi-autos were wiped out, along with the .223, 5.56, and .300 rounds—for the AR-10s, he supposed. All that was left was a Mossberg 500 12 gauge. That would work.

“Nice,” he whispered, smiling.

Fortunately, there were tons of shells available. He filled his new pack with as many boxes as he could carry, leaving one out to load up. As he filled up the shotty, Toni brought over a nice bow for him to see.

“How’s this for ya?” she asked.

Jake nodded. It looked pretty nice. “Looks good,” he said. “I’ll take it.”

She laid it down on the counter, leaning against the glass and looking up at him.

“How you feelin’?” she asked.

“I feel alright,” Jake replied. “A little sore from jumping across that gap, but alright.”

“How’s your blood sugar?”

Jake shrugged. “Maybe a little high,” he said. “But that’s better than too low.”

“Well,” she said, “we need to find you some insulin.”

Jake sighed, laying the shotgun down on the counter. “We probably won’t find any,” he said. “And if we did, it would be expired.”

“My brother was diabetic, too. He used one of those pens. They have a longer shelf life. I bet they would stay good for a long time.”

“Longer than me, probably.”

He looked down, thinking of how pathetic that may have sounded—or sad, who knows? Either way, as someone with a chronic disease, he would likely be a burden on anyone he was with. Toni was fairly young, but tough as shit. She didn’t need him. Not at all. She would be better off without him, in fact. One thing was certain, though; he needed her. Did he ever.

“You won’t die,” she said, slinging her pack over her back. “Not on my watch.”

“3
rd
Street eventually runs out of town,” Toni said as they emerged from the sporting goods store. “We could go east to the edge of town and hit the highway.”

“Where will that take us?” Jake asked.

“Well, there are some little towns along the way,” she replied. “Then somewhere between here and Columbus, there’s Nashville.”

“Tennessee?”

Toni snickered. “No,” she said. “Nashville, Indiana.”

Jake grunted. He had never heard of it. “What’s there?”

Toni shook her head, shrugging. “Who knows? But it’s a small town in the big woods. Could be lots of places to hide. Maybe your friends went there.”

“I doubt it,” Jake said. “Dan isn’t much of a big city guy, but I think he would stick close to one so he could go on supply runs.”

“Then Nashville would be perfect,” Toni said. “It’s almost exactly between Bloomington and Columbus. He would have his choice of two major cities.”

Jake nodded, sticking out his bottom lip. Toni chuckled when she saw it.

She had a point, Jake realized. Nashville
would
be perfect if it was located between two cities. It would be a logical place to go. But would Dan know that? He had never heard Dan mention Nashville, or Columbus for that matter. Drew, either. What were the odds?

Fuck it.

“Alright,” Jake said, finally. “Let’s go to Nashville.”

Toni stopped, scanning the area around them. They had just left the confines of the city itself and had wandered into the outskirts. Though there were cars everywhere, none of them looked like they had simply been abandoned. Even so, if they found one with the keys in it, it would probably also have rotting corpses sitting inside.

“How far is it?” Jake asked.

“About twenty minutes by car,” Toni replied. “But it doesn’t look like we’ll be driving. I don’t imagine any of these cars have any gas left in them.”

“It wouldn’t hurt to check.”

Toni nodded, heading off toward the nearest car. It was a little VW something, compact and not very masculine. She inspected it, walking a full circle around it, looking in the windows, and kicking the tires. Jake opened the passenger door, seeing the tiny seats.

“No fuckin’ way,” he said. “My left leg wouldn’t fit in this.”

“No keys, anyway.”

“You can’t hotwire a car?” Jake asked.

Toni gave him that look again. “Can you?” she asked.

Jake shrugged. “Well,” he said. “Next…”

They turned to the next closest vehicle, a mid-sized Ford Taurus. There were two bodies inside, both of them leaning against their respective windows. Toni knocked on the passenger side window, standing back and placing her left hand on the revolver at her hip. The corpses inside began to stir. They moved their heads, leaving sticky trails of slimy flesh on the glass.

“Yuck,” Jake said. “Okay, not this one.”

“Do we leave them?” Toni asked.

“What else are we gonna do?” Jake said. “They can’t get out. They’ll eventually putrefy and be useless; you know, like a Ford Taurus.”

Toni’s grin was striking. Her teeth were perfect, Jake noticed. Now if she would only take off that headscarf.

“What’s under that scarf?” he asked.

She gave him a strange look. “My head.”

“No,” he said, smiling. “I can see a big braid underneath it. I know you have hair.”

She reached up and pulled off the scarf. Underneath, her hair was slicked back and tied into a braid that hung down between her shoulder blades. Jake smiled, rubbing his own bald head. Toni chuckled, tying her scarf again.

“I could use a shave,” Jake said. “Maybe I can use that knife of yours.”

“I don’t think so.”

As they chuckled, a single shuffler rounded a trailer ahead. It stumbled toward them menacingly, and Jake dropped his pack to draw his bow.

“I got it,” he said. “Watch this.”

He knocked an arrow and pulled back the bow without much effort. He loosed, and the arrow streaked right into the thing’s chest with a heavy thunk. It kept coming.

“What the fuck?” he said, scowling.

“Headshot,” Toni told him. “Trust me.”

He knocked another arrow, this time aiming for the head. When he released, the arrow struck the forehead dead center. The shuffler went limp, falling straight down, lifeless.

“Hmm,” Jake said. “That’s weird.”

“Not really,” Toni said as she went toward the fallen creature. “Look at it.”

Jake shouldered the bow and followed Toni to the corpse. He looked down, not really seeing anything interesting other than a dead body.

“What’s different about it?” Toni asked him.

Jake couldn’t tell. It looked like any other shuffler he had seen before, except for the lack of the usual layers of fungus. Even the eyes looked the same. Though it was aggressive, which shufflers usually weren’t, there was nothing notable. He shrugged.

“It’s not one of those mutants,” she said. “It’s a dead body.”

Jake shrugged. “Aren’t they all?”

Toni shook her head. “This is someone who died several months ago. Its flesh isn’t eaten away by fungus. It’s rot, that’s it. This person died in the initial infection.”

“Then why is it—or
was
it—walking around?”

“Don’t know,” Toni said. “But it’s happening. I noticed it a week ago or so when I was wandering around. There were areas with a bunch of dead all piled up that were empty again. I thought maybe scavengers had gotten them, or maybe the really weird mutants… but, no. They just got up and walked away.”

Jake grunted. What a strange revelation. Not only were there mutants, but now the actual dead were walking around. What would cause that? The dead can’t just get up and walk around. They were dead. Period.

Or were they?

“Maybe they weren’t really dead?” Jake said. Toni gave him a “you got it” look from the corner of her eye.

“Jesus,” Jake said, raising his palms to the sky.

It was dusk when they reached the edge of the city. They passed an Asian buffet on the right and were headed into curvy, wooded road. It was dark, as was expected, but Jake guessed that even when the power was on, it would still be dark. The street lights were few and far between.

“The darkness is creepy,” Jake said, munching on a jerky stick. “But I like it.”

“It makes it a little harder to see anything, though,” Toni replied. “We should probably find some place to chill out until morning.”

Jake looked around to either side of the road. “One of these houses might be alright,” he said. “Maybe one of them would even have some insulin.”

“Let’s find out,” Toni said, smiling.

Just as they picked a house to explore, the faint glow of headlights in the distance caught their attention. They immediately ducked and sprinted across the nearest lawn, hiding behind a row of hedges. The headlights grew brighter, but whatever vehicle they came from was obviously slowing down.

They heard the low rumble of an engine idling down the street. Then, a rusted, white pickup appeared, rolling slowly along, the beams of several flashlights shining from both sides of the cab. One of the beams moved in their direction, and they ducked as far down as they could. Jake felt nervous. His heart sped up, and the rush of adrenaline warmed him.

They stayed quiet as the truck passed them. But instead of driving off, the truck stopped. The engine still rumbled, and the flash of the tail lights told them that it had been put in park. They could hear several voices, all of them men, spreading out into the surrounding lots.

“Shit,” Jake whispered. “If one of them comes this way, we’re screwed.”

“
If
they’re assholes,” Toni said. “But what if they’re not?”

“We should always assume that strangers are, shouldn’t we?”

Toni shrugged. “Probably. You ever kill anybody?”

Jake shook his head. “You?”

Toni didn’t answer, but turned her head back toward the truck. A flashlight appeared at the edge of the lot, and the silhouette of its bearer followed. The man was fairly tall, wearing a trench coat, and carrying a shotgun in his other hand. He slowly stalked toward the house, crouching when he reached the walkway.

He was way too close.

Jake’s heart thumped wildly. If they were discovered, who knows what would happen? They would either be shot, or the guy would just call to his buddies and then all hell would break loose.

Evidently, Toni was thinking the same thing.

Just as the man stepped onto the porch, Toni leaped up and grabbed him by the throat. She jabbed her knife into his chest from behind, and twisted it as she brought him down. Jake’s heart nearly exploded. He watched wide-eyed as the he stopped struggling. Toni looked up at him with one eyebrow cocked.

“I guess that answers your question,” she said.

“That was brutal,” he said. “I like it.”

“Sometimes you gotta just take the initiative,” Toni continued. “In this day and age, you can’t trust anybody you don’t know. He might have been an alright guy; who knows? But he could have been a killer, too. Better safe than sorry, right?”

Jake agreed. That was always a good policy, no matter what the situation. The fact that Toni would rather kill a stranger outright than risk being discovered showed him just how cautious—and ruthless—she really was. In a world of shit, she was definitely a survivor.

Toni went through the man’s pockets, finding a few shotgun shells and some candy bars. She took one and gave the rest to Jake. The two of them watched the other men as they scoured the small neighborhood. None of them appeared to be interested in the houses. Maybe they had already looted them, or they were just looking for something specific. Either way, the man Toni had just killed may have been investigating something he saw; probably them.

“They’re gonna wonder where their boy is,” Jake said.

“Probably. We should go around the back of the house, just in case they decide to investigate.”

“Hold on,” Jake said, stopping her with a hand to the shoulder.

Three flashlights shined in their direction. Evidently they were looking for their companion, who they obviously saw go to the porch of this particular house. One of them began to walk toward their hiding spot, shining his flashlight in every direction.

“Jimmy,” the guy whispered loudly. “Jimmy, where are you?”

He stopped, shining his light at the front door. He moved it slowly from side to side, still calling his companion’s name.

“Jimmy,” he called again.

“Bill!”
another voice called from the truck.
“Come on! We’re going. It’s not here.”

“I can’t find Jimmy!”
the man called back.

“Fuck him!”