Apocalypse Aftermath (68 page)

“Some.” he said, his voice thick with unspoken sobs.  “Some.”

“Day at a time, hour at a time, minute at a time.” Jody murmured.  “Pain fine.  Sad fine.  But you gotta be strong so we can be strong.  We need you.  Ain’t no one else ready to lead.”

“
I ain’t no leader.”

“Yes you is.  You the new Top.”

Darryl heard running footsteps and looked up.  Burnout was approaching, slowing as he neared.

“What?”
Darryl asked, a little more harshly than he wanted to, as he lifted his head some.

“Bobo awake.” Burnout said quickly.  “He want to talk to you DJ.”

Jody stood and stepped back to make room for Darryl to come out of the chair.  She followed at his side as he ran for the first tent, which had been erected right over Bobo earlier.  The air mattress the old biker lay on was wet from its most recent cleaning, as was the tarp beneath that.  Vivian knelt next to him, listening to his chest with her stethoscope.  Bobo’s eyes were closed, but they flicked half-open weakly when he heard Darryl pound up.

“Bobo.” Darryl said, dropping to his knees next to the mattress.

“DJ.” Bobo said in a weak voice thready with painful breathing.

“Yeah.  How you doing bro?”

“Not good.” Bobo answered with a faint sigh.  “Vivian say it not good.”

“We doing everything we can.”  Darryl told him quickly.

“I know you is.  Vivian say there a doctor here you done went and fetched back.  That good.  She say we got a lot of sick, but most everyone gonna pull through.”

“So are you.”

“Don’t feel like it.” Bobo shook his head gently.  “I old DJ.  Old and worn out.”

“You strong Bobo.  You always been strong.”

“Not anymore.”

Darryl blinked and felt his fists clenching.  He really wanted to hit something.  He really, really did.

“Fucking listen to me.”

Darryl bent closer to Bobo.  The old biker grinned lopsidedly up at him.  “You strong.  You been coasting for years, playing the easy card, but you got it.
  It in you.  What you done since we got out here prove it.”

“I just done what you said.”

“Naw bro, you done what needed doing.  You a smart Dog, and I picked you out for a reason.  You gotta be the brother everyone look to.  That on you.”

Darryl nodded unhappily.  Bobo sighed again.  “You gonna hate it.  You gonna hate every minute of it, but it ain’t chilling and grooving no more.  Shit serious.  You gotta be more serious or it all start tearing everyone up.  Ain’t no room for fucking around no more.  You get me?”

“Yeah bro, I get you.”

Bobo nodded.  “Good.  That good.  You gonna be fine.”

“So are you.”

Bobo just looked at him.  Darryl refused to look at Vivian, he just met Bobo’s eyes.  The Dogz founder didn’t say a word, just gave him a shadow of that look he used when someone was playing the fool.

“Zombie.” Candice said.

Jessica lowered the saw and looked around quickly.  Candice was standing a few feet away,
where she wasn’t under foot, but she was pointing off to the left.  Looking in that direction, Jessica found the staggering figure just emerging from the far side of the field.

She didn’t think it was fair to call the
land around the house they were occupying a farm, because except for the little garden, it was all just grass.  But there was an awful lot of open space that looked like it was just waiting for a tractor with a plow to come by.  The trees bordering the area weren’t too thickly clustered, but they were thick enough that Jessica didn’t feel comfortable going anywhere near them.

Too many ways for a zombie to show up
unseen, without warning.

Instead, she was focusing on the trees
closer to the house, the ones in the middle of the cleared areas.  She hadn’t bothered to try and figure up any sort of estimate, but she was fairly certain they’d run out of food before she ran out of low hanging branches in the middle of the fields to collect.  And it let her be comfortably assured that nothing could sneak up on them while working.

Now she studied the zombie for a moment.  It looked like it was wandering a little aimlessly, but she expected it would quickly spot them and head this way.  Certainly by the time she and Candice could make it back to the house.  That would just draw it over there, so she nodded calmly.

“Keep an eye on it for me Candy Bear.  Make sure I don’t forget about it, and I’ll shoot it when it’s closer.”

“Okay.”

“And remember to keep watching everywhere else too.”

“Yes mom.”

Jessica grinned faintly at the, very slight, undertone of exasperation in her daughter’s voice.  Watching for zombies was apparently getting to be old hat.  Enough so that Candice was treating it like the other things she felt her mother nagged her about.  Jessica went back to sawing on the maple branch.  Half a minute later and the saw had bit through enough of it for the branch to sag to the ground.  She completed the cut, then pulled the branch over to the waiting wheelbarrow.

The zombie had definitely noticed her and Candice, but it wasn’t moving very fast.  Jessica had time to lay the branch across the wheelbarrow and cut several of the smaller limbs off before Candice spoke again.

“What about now?”

Jessica looked up again.  The zombie was maybe fifty feet away.  Nodding, Jessica wiped sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand and laid the saw atop the wood she’d already cut.  Turning, she limped a few steps clear of the wheelbarrow and drew the
Shield from the holster at her back.

The smaller pistol used the same ammunition as the MP5, which meant
they had a lot of bullets for it.  The SUV was reasonably stocked, which made sense considering who had been driving it before Jessica took it.  The Taurus’ forty-five caliber rounds were in shorter supply.  She pulled on the pistol’s slide to load the first bullet in the magazine, then raised the weapon in both hands.  The sight dots wavered a little as she lined them up on the zombie.

It was staggering back and forth as it made its way toward them.  She got used to what there was of its pattern
of movement and let her aim settle on it, then sorted out her breathing too.  Practice, practice, practice.  Austin said that’s all shooting was.  Something to work on like anything else.  Start slow and before long the habits began to ingrain themselves.

The dots’ motion stilled
as her breath exhaled, and she watched the zombie’s head slide into alignment with the sights.  Her finger compressed on the trigger, the gun kicked lightly against her hands, and the zombie’s head wasn’t in view anymore.  Pulling her gaze away from the trio of dots as she lowered the Shield, she saw the zombie was on the ground.  She waited ten seconds, counting slowly in her head, but there was no more movement.

“Good shot mom.”

“Thank you.  Good eye spotting it so quickly.” Jessica said as she safed the pistol and slid it back into the holster.

“How much more wood do we need?”

Jessica considered.  She had already dumped one load of cut branches on the edge of the back patio.  The wheelbarrow was mostly full again.  “I’ll finish this branch and we’re done for today.”

“I still don’t understand why Austin says we should cut the wood before we need it.”

Jessica smiled as she resumed sawing the branch into smaller pieces.  “Long story short, fresh wood is harder to make burn, and it smokes more when it does.  Even with that other bag of charcoal I found, we’re probably going to be out soon.  Cutting these now will be good later.”

Candice
was looking around again, her head turning in complete circuits of the fields.  “But we don’t know how long we’re going to stay here.”

“As long as we can.” Jessica said as she sawed.  “But probably four or five days.  The wood can come with us though.  There’s room in the car
to take it.”

“And we’ll find another house when we leave?”

“That’s the plan.”

“I think it’s a good plan.”

Jessica laughed.  “Thanks.  I’m glad you and Austin agree with the plan.”

“
What are we going to do after we’re done with the wood?”

“
We’re
done with the wood?”

Candice heaved a melodramatic sigh.  “You said I couldn’t use the saw
, but that I could be the lookout.  That means I’m helping.”

“You’re right.  I’m being unfair.  When
we’re
done with the wood, I want to finish going through the bedrooms for clothes.  Then it’ll be time to change Austin’s bandages, then lunch, and after that I thought we could play cards for a while and maybe work on the clothes.”

Jessica saw Candice was thinking about something, and waited patiently.  Finally, after she’d almost finished sectioning the branch into handy pieces that would fit easily in the barbecue grill, Candice nodded unconsciously.

“I think I’m going to let Austin win if he wants to play Nah-Ah later.”

“What?” Jessica asked.  “Why?”

“Because he’s hurt, and winning’s fun.  He says it’s boring waiting to get better, so I guess he should get to have fun.”

Jessica resisted the urge to giggle
.  She pretended to be looking for a good spot to place the last cut with the saw while she covered her amusement.  When she was sure she could speak normally, she shrugged nonchalantly.  “That’s very thoughtful.  But you have to be careful about something like that.  If he catches you letting him win, it won’t be as fun for him as you’re hoping.”

“I don’t know.” Candice remarked.  “He likes being sneaky, and he likes catching others being sneaky.”

Now Jessica did give into her impulse to laugh.  “I think you might have a point there.  You’ll just have to try it and see.”

Jessica finished sectioning the branch, piled the pieces into the wheelbarrow
along with the hand saw, and lifted the handles.  Her knee was slowly improving, but she still took it easy as she rolled the wheelbarrow over to the back porch.  The wood went down atop the earlier pile, then she left the wheelbarrow next to it.

The big pot of water on the barbecue grille was still warm
from the remnants of the breakfast fire.  She took the morning dishes out of it using the tongs and pot holders to protect her hand from the heat.  She didn’t feel right just discarding dishes after one use, even if there might have been enough cooking pots available for her to do that.  Instead, she was washing them in the sink, then after rising all the soap off, boiling them with the remains of the cooking fire.

Leaving the dishes
to dry on the small table she’d dragged out to the patio, she eased back inside and checked the first story, including all the doors and windows.  Another habit to practice.  This one was easier to remember.  Everything was as she’d left it; closed, locked, unbroken and undisturbed.  Nodding, she went upstairs one step at a time, still taking it easy on her bad knee.

“Austin, you okay?”
she asked, raising her voice as she reached the upstairs hallway.

“That was a nice shot.” he called back through the open bedroom door.

“Thanks.”  Clearly he was keeping an eye on them through the bedroom window.

“What’s for lunch?”

“You’re hungry already?”

“Hey, I was shot you know.”

Jessica smiled ruefully.  “I know.  Thank you.”

“More than once.” he said, his tone clearly amused.

“Yes, I know.”

“Just checking.”

“Less checking, more resting.” Jessica told him with a smile as she peered into one of the bedrooms she hadn’t searched yet.  The room was empty, but it had been occupied by someone before whoever lived here had left.  Or never come back.  Or whatever.  She started opening dresser drawers to look at the clothes that had been left behind.

The rest of the morning went pretty well.  She turned up clothing that would fit her quite
acceptably, including – wonder of wonders – underwear that was almost her size.  A little loose, but she could manage around that.  A dresser full of shirts and pants and so forth that would be ponchos, at best, on her; but could probably fit Austin reasonably well.  No kid’s clothes of any kind, but she’d found sewing things yesterday.  That offered some possibilities.

Jessica
had created three piles of clothes in the master bedroom by the time she finished.  She sat looking through the ones she was considering altering to fit Candice while Austin pieced through what she’d found for him.

“Are you trying to say something?” Austin asked as she considered the piles.

“What?”  She looked up at him in surprise at the sudden question.

His pile was on the end of the bed
where he could reach it, and when she looked he held up a pair of denim overalls.  They were the about right height for him, but as he held them up she realized whoever they’d been purchased for must have been at least a hundred pounds heavier than Austin.  Which was saying quite a bit; because Austin was built like a professional nose tackle.