America the Dead (19 page)

Ted smiled. “Of course. Not a problem. I’ll select the men and we’ll be off in the morning.”

Thorton smiled back. He knew Ted would take men that might be more loyal to the captain than the major and that suited him just fine. He then turned serious. “Don’t fail in this, Ted. I need that John Talon out of the way, if he’s as serious as that idiot said.”

The captain shook his head. “How hard could it be?” he asked.

17

Dan Winters ran. He had to get to his boat and make a run for it at least across the river. He couldn’t go south now because they would be waiting for him on the river. But his conscience was starting to get real itchy and he began to feel like he needed to go north. Right now, he just wanted to get away.

“There he is! Get him!” Shots whipped past his head as he crashed down the long slope towards the water. The men above him were clearly unused to a hard chase and Dan was able to keep ahead of them. He had kept his weapon, but he knew if he stopped and fought, he would be outflanked and killed in a short amount of time. The greatest danger would be the few precious seconds he was going to need to get the boat untied and started, but if he could gain a few seconds, he might be able to make it.

As he reached the bottom of the slope pretty much on his ass, Dan stretched his long legs and ran like he had never run before. While taking shelter behind a tree, he looked for his pursuers and saw them just halfway down the slope, dim shapes through the leaves.

Praying for luck, he took out his handgun and fired as best he could with shaking hands. Four shots and then he was running again, not even looking to see if he had hit anything. The men on the hill shouted and ducked for cover, giving Dan a few seconds to get away. But when more shots weren’t forthcoming, the soldiers continued pursuit.

Winters ran for the water’s edge and then ran upriver to where his boat was moored. He slashed the rope with his knife, then threw the boat into the water, launching himself into the back end. Muttering a quick prayer, he yanked on the cord and the engine to life, then died.

Cursing, Dan primed the motor, prayed again, then tried again The motor coughed again and then died. Dan primed it again, all the while realizing he was drifting closer to his pursuers.

Yanking the cord again, Dan ducked down as a bullet careened off his gunwale and ricocheted into the sky. The engine coughed, sputtered, wheezed, then roared to life, surging forward and nearly tipping Winters overboard. He corrected himself and sent the boat running upriver as bullets whipped past and churned the water around him. He fired his own weapon over his shoulder at the assembled men on the shore, causing them once again to duck.

Just as he was about to round a bend to relative safety, Dan pitched forward as a sledgehammer slammed into his back. He managed to keep a hand on the tiller and steered himself away from the fight.

Back on the shore, the men saw Winters fall and figured him for dead. They reloaded their spent magazines and started the long walk down the river back to the lodge, congratulating themselves on a job well done.

Dan knew he was in a bad way, but he couldn’t go for help. He shoved a towel onto his injured back and strapped his backpack on as tight as he could, trying to stop the bleeding. The bullet hadn’t gone completely through, but was lodged in his back near his shoulder. His right arm was nearly useless, but he had to keep going. He had to get to Starved Rock and warn the families there they were in danger because of his stupidity.

After he and his friends had quit the community, they had found nothing but hardship. They had lost one of their number in a bad town crawling with little fast zombies that had chased them to the river. They managed to escape, but just when things seemed to go well, they turned bad again. After a month of living hand to mouth, Dan had regretted acting like such a fool. He and his companion were just about to turn north anyway and ask forgiveness when they had been caught. Now Dan’s big mouth may have condemned several people to die, but it wasn’t going to happen if he could help it.

Winters travelled until nightfall, then beached himself on a small island. It was safer than trying to find a place on shore. He settled into a feverish sleep, sweating and fidgeting.

In the morning, Dan woke up to find the sun full on his face. He had slept longer than he wanted to and his shoulder was stiff as a board. It was a struggle to get up and even harder to start the motor, but he managed to do it, crying out in pain as he fell back when the motor kicked to life. His shoulder was a mess of dried blood and the towel was stuck to his back, but the bleeding had stopped. Dan gritted his teeth and continued north.

A week later, a man tending to cattle held on an island in the middle of a river discovered a small boat grounded on the south side. He surely hadn’t seen it before, but approached it cautiously, since there appeared to be a bloody hand hanging over the side. Looking in, he saw a man, barely old enough to shave, slumped in the bottom of the boat, hardly breathing. Carefully lifting him, the man brought the injured kid over to his boat and took him swiftly across the river to the landing on the other side.

Taking out his radio, he called ahead and received a reply, telling him to hold tight and wait. The man took the delay as an opportunity to look over the injured man, giving him water and trying to see the extent of his injuries. He appeared to have been shot, a curious thing, but the wound looked old, several days at least. Ten minutes later, a large man appeared from the woods, making no more noise than a shadow. He was well-armed and took in his surroundings every few seconds, making sure all was well in his vicinity.

The second man spoke. “What have you found, Mike?”

“Well, I was over checking on the livestock when I found this jasper in the boat on the…whoa!” Mike jumped back as the standing man drew his weapon and trained it on the head of the man lying down. The prone man’s head had turned at the sound of voices and was instantly recognized by the newcomer. Mike drew his own weapon in response and stood up next to other man. “What’s going on?” he asked, pointing his own weapon at the wounded man.

Charlie James knelt down by Dan Winters and spoke coldly. “If you can hear me, you’d better give me a reason for not killing you right now.”

Dan opened his eyes and tried to think through his fever-racked brain. All he could muster was, “They’re coming for you.”

Charlie looked around, his brow furrowing. “Who? Dan, don’t crap out on me now. Who?”

Winters took a few deep breaths. “Thorton.” More breaths. “He knows where you are.”

Charlie cursed. It was what he and John had feared. “Where did you escape? When?” Charlie was impatient and concerned all at the same time. He opened his canteen and splashed some water on Dan’s face. “You gotta talk to me, kid,” he said sternly.

Dan seemed to revive a little with the water. “Seven days. Pere Marquette.” He slumped into unconsciousness, unable to speak anymore.

Mike looked at Charlie. “What do you want me to do?”

Charlie looked down at Dan. “Take him to the Visitor Center, I’ll get Rebecca down to look at him. After that, get yourself armed. We got a fight coming.” Charlie looked at the lodge and the surrounding area. For all he knew, the fight was already here.

18

We’d been on the road now for about three weeks. Normally a trip like this would take two days at most. But that was when the world was normal and the highways weren’t choked with abandoned cars and rotting corpses all over the place. Some of those corpses were still walking around, many of them weren’t.

When we had reached the outskirts of Fort Wayne, Indiana, it was clear we weren’t going to be able to follow our designated path. Route 30 had become a tangled mess and I was amazed we had been able to follow it as long as we did. But in parts it was obvious that it was the major road and people had tried to escape using it. Spots of it were clear, but enough was jammed with cars so we didn’t even bother to try. We were forced to go further south, which was fine by me. We would have had to eventually turn south anyway, so this route was as good as any other.

The map indicated that Route 40 was a straight shot to Washington, so we decided to try our luck with old number 40. Things had been going pretty well, all in all. We had discovered that away from the major population centers, people had managed to survive. The smaller towns joined with the larger ones and with increased numbers they managed to keep the zombies at bay for the time being. We still passed many, many dead towns, but the ratio seemed to be two or three dead towns for every live one. I had a lot more hope than I originally had at the beginning of this trip and I began to think we might pull this one off.

At every live town we came to, we explained who we were and what we were doing. It was gratifying to see the overwhelming majority of people supported us and wished us luck. We had a lot of volunteers to come help, but I always politely refused. I told them this was a job for a small team or an army and we had nothing that resembled the latter. At each town, we discussed communications and many of them had some form of speaking to each other. Many were nothing more than car batteries hooked up to CB radios, but they worked and that was the key. I had to think of a way to try and communicate with all of them, but nothing I knew of had that kind of power anymore.

We spent three luxurious days in a small town in Indiana and I say luxurious because they happened to still have power. The electrical plant was nuclear and since they managed to figure out how to keep the thing running and closed all non-essential lines, my crew and I actually managed to take a hot shower for the first time in forever. Tommy said he was grateful for the water as well, not for him, but for me, since he claimed I didn’t smell so good.

We crossed into Ohio after having an interesting run through Richmond, Indiana. The people there were living ten feet off the ground. Every man, woman and child had up and moved literally ten feet in the air. They had suspended bridges between buildings, created walkways that allowed them to move freely about the town, all without touching the ground. Baskets of earth had been hauled up to the tops of flat roofed buildings and they planted their food up in the air as well. All this was well and good, but there was a snag that we could see from our perch on a distant hill. The ground was crawling with zombies. All kinds, large and small, milling about, groaning at whoever happened to be seen at that particular moment. The noise was impressive, but even more so was the fact that the people didn’t seem to notice the grim sea beneath them. They had adapted their world and were content with the living arrangements. We just went our way. It was none of our business and the odds were long against us. Besides, if we did somehow manage to get rid of the Z’s, they’d probably be mad at us for making them waste all that effort. People were weird.

According to the map, the town we were approaching was Lewisburg and for some reason I can’t explain, I started to get a twitchy feeling in the back of my neck, like something was going seriously wrong somewhere. I couldn’t shake the feeling and it stayed with me all day. I spoke to Nate about it, but he just told me to stop being an old woman and concentrate on the job. Good old Nate.

The road we wanted to take led us right down the middle of the town and at first glance, there didn’t seem to be anything about. The road turned down a small valley and we passed what appeared to be a subdivision entrance that went back up a hill parallel to the one we were on. Some fairly large homes were tucked away back there, but even at this distance, we could see signs of the Upheaval.

We moved slowly up the next hill, learning from our past not to rush too quickly into areas we couldn’t see. The road was lined with old oak trees, flexing their branch tips to the spring sun. On the left side of the road was an old farm, on the right was an old cemetery, full of weeds and tired gravestones.

I still didn’t see much movement, so I just shrugged at Nate and gestured to him to keep moving. We glided into town and I looked carefully around. I didn’t see any serious signs of violence, so it may have been that this town just up and left for more secured living. We passed an old courthouse, with its front door framed in WWI artillery pieces and an auto-body shop with wide open bay doors.

We bumped over a couple of sets of railroad tracks and Nate pulled over to the gas station sitting on the corner.

“We’re not empty, but a couple of our gas cans are, so I’m going to see what I can come up with,” he explained, easing the big rig under the station’s awning.

“Sounds good. I’m going to have a look around, see if I can’t come up with any supplies,” I said, moving to the gear locker.

Tommy and Duncan came up from the back. “What’s up?” Duncan asked, looking out the window at the quiet town.

“Nate’s going to see about some gas for the rig and I’m going to see about some possible supplies. Wanna come along?” I asked, shrugging into my backpack. My SIG was always on me, as was my knife. I picked up my AR and pickaxe.

“Sure,” Tommy said. “I could stand to stretch my legs.” He grabbed his gear and Duncan did the same. We each snared an empty duffle bag to put supplies in and with a quick look out the window, stepped out of the RV.

We quickly fanned out into a triangular pattern, moving eastward on a cross road that ran parallel to the railroad tracks. There were a number of businesses along that front I wanted to take a quick look into, especially the pharmacy midway through the block, since medicines were in constant short supply. We moved past a small ticket station next to the tracks and I looked around to see if there was any more evidence the town had been hit by the virus.