Dead Surge (13 page)

As we approached the town proper, a man standing by a tower on the side of the road hailed us. The tower was a mixed-build affair, with concrete walls reaching ten feet up, made higher by a wooden structure that extended another fifteen feet in the air. A small, solid shack that had a little water tower, a stove, and several antennas topped it. I had been in one of the towers a few years back and it was a cozy little place. I stopped the truck alongside the man. I recognized him from the earlier years, and he hadn’t changed much, just a little grayer on top and a little more wrinkled around the eyes.

“How do? You all just passin’ through? Holy Shoot! John Talon! Sarah! Git out here!” The man stepped back and the two of us got out shaking hands and giving hugs.

“How you been, Jason? Good to see you’re still kicking.”

“Can’t complain, can’t complain. Who’s in the other van?” Jason squinted and suddenly turned serious. “Is that Charlie? Who else you got in there? Duncan and Tommy?”

I nodded and Jason gave me a look. “You here about the outbreak?” He asked.

“What outbreak?” I decided to see if Jason would confirm our theories.

“We’ve had an outbreak on the south end of town, can’t explain what the hell happened. People went to bed just fine, and then the next day they’re attacking their neighbors. We’ve been under a lot of stress just keeping it under control. We’ve been sweeping daily for a couple of weeks, and we think we’ve gotten it handled, but it’s been tough. The last couple of days have been quiet, so we think we may have it covered,” Jason said.

“Did you call anyone about it? Maybe get some help?” I asked, wondering if the third team had been here.

Jason shook his head. “Our equipment got blown up when a zombie caught fire and walked into the generator gas supply. The radio was next door. Now that you mention it, a team did show up from the capitol, but they didn’t stick around.”

Jason looked at me hard. “What’s going on, John? This is my home now, and if there’s something happening related to these outbreaks, we should know.”

Jason was right and I quickly outlined what we knew and suspected. He listened, and his eyes got wide at the description of the attackers, especially at their behavior.

“Dang. Well, you got work to do, so I won’t keep you from it. Thanks for the heads up, and we’ll keep our eyes open.” He went back to his tower and threw a wave to Charlie and Rebecca as they drove past. I figured this town was going to be okay, unless the little devils came back. The part that was eluding me was how they were traveling from town to town. I couldn’t find the connection.

We drove fast to the next town, but since the road wasn’t the greatest, we took longer than I was hoping for. What should have been a twenty-minute drive actually took nearly an hour.

I pulled down the road to Stanton, and drove up to a water tower. As we got out to stretch, I had Charlie drive over to the tower and Duncan managed to get the ladder from the roof of the van. He quickly scampered up and he was gone for about ten minutes. When he came down, he had familiar news.

“Town’s gone. Looks as if a last stand was made at the school, but there’s nothing but corpses around here,” Duncan said.

“Any good news?” Charlie asked.

“If I had to guess, the attack came from the south again, but I can’t be sure. There’s a good number of little dead zombies, so they made a good fight of it.”

“Survivors?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

“Nope. I did see what looked like the remains of some heavy vehicles, so I’d say this was the last stand of the last team out here.”

I did some mental math, and figured we were probably a week and change behind the last team out here. With the fight here, we were probably four days behind our little marauders.

Four days, and we were about two hundred and fifty miles from the border.

We were way too close to being out of time.

Chapter 28

At the junction of 34 and 71, I turned south to check out the town of Villisca. It was the only town in the area of any size, and with the way things were going; we couldn’t just drive away from it. Sarah had rightly pointed out that, if it was untouched, they deserved to know what was headed their way. If we found several towns unharmed, we could at least know we had somehow gotten ahead of the threat and could prepare to meet it.

Villisca was only five miles away and the roads were actually pretty good, given the winters in Iowa, so we made decent time. At West High Street, we turned into the town proper and it was easy to see it was still alive. There was a lot of activity, and a lot of people moving around. A kid on a bike rode up to us, and gave us directions to the High School, where efforts were being coordinated to deal with the current outbreak.

We found the high school and a small, round, and heavily tattooed woman came out to meet me. She was about five feet tall, five feet wide, with bright red hair and a cigar hanging out of her mouth.

“Who the hell are you?” She demanded, placing a hand on her hip where a revolver sat in a worn holster. A bandolier of ammo ran over her shoulder and I could see several loops were empty.

I scanned the area quickly, and noticed a couple of men lounging nearby, well-armed and waiting for instruction. To the south and west, I could hear occasional shots and shouts.

“Name’s John Talon, this here’s Charlie James, Tommy Carter, Duncan Fries, and Rebecca and Sarah. Looks like you’ve got an outbreak on your hands,” I said.

“Ain’t you brilliant? Yes, dummy, we’ve got an outbreak.” She paused to listen to her radio, which had an ear bud in her left ear. “Cliff! Jenkins! They need help down by the bar and grill! Git movin’!” She turned back to me. “Heard of you. First president after the Upheaval. Nice to meet you. Heard about Denver, too. You and that Mr. James ought to be ashamed of yourselves.”

Charlie had the decency to look away before he laughed, but I just let it go. I liked this woman, and I had no idea who she was.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sarah straighten a little. “And what’s your name, sweetie?” She asked, staring at the presumed leader of the town. Sarah didn’t like anyone who was rude, especially to me. I guess I should be flattered, but I swear I got into more fights over it.

The leader turned her little black eyes on Sarah and stared back. “My name’s Crystal, and you’d better watch that ‘sweetie’ bullshit, missy.”

Sarah stepped forward and would have started a serious argument, but I put up a hand. “Enough. If you need help, ask. If not, don’t be rude, we’ll be on our way.”

Crystal put both hands on her hips and started a ‘Who do you think you are?’ tirade that lasted a full minute. I let her run out of steam before I decided to end the conversation.

I stepped close and looked down at her, letting her know I now wasn’t in the mood for nonsense. “Now, you listen for a change, because you have a question to answer…’Will I run your ass out of this town as a rogue threat to the country?’ Before you think to answer that, yes, I have that authority, and yes, my crew here is fully capable of taking care of any objections you or your men might have. If we leave you here in charge it is because I allow it.” I paused for a breath and Crystal looked shocked.

“I don’t want to deal with this. I have bigger problems on my mind right now, and frankly, so do you. Answer my questions and we’ll be on our way if you don’t want our help.”

Crystal was much more subdued, and answered my questions honestly, even if a bit sulkily. It seemed they had things in hand here. Since it was a recent outbreak, it took a few people by surprise, but they were getting it under control and were doing okay. I was glad to hear that, because I didn’t want to spend time in a place I wasn’t needed. When I asked about communications, she gave me a noncommittal grunt.

Chapter 29

County Highway 54 was little more than a two-lane road, with gravel driveways leading off in the distance to farmhouses and silos. There were spots of trees here and there, and I knew enough about farmland to know that was typically, where the creeks and waterways were. There were ponds scattered about, and the remnants of crops long forgotten and gone to seed. I saw there were still some patches of corn, but they went to feed the crows and critters that roamed freely over the land now.

The road took a sharp turn to the north, and before I knew it, I was riding up on Nodaway. The town was seriously in the middle of nowhere, and as we drove along the western edge, I could see that it wasn’t much, even in its heyday. Several homes looked like they were in some dire need of paint, and it was old enough to show that it was like that even before the end of the world. Many homes were small, four or five room affairs, but they were sitting on three-acre lots littered with outbuildings, children’s toys, and rusted out cars.

Sarah looked at me and shrugged, and I had to return the gesture. We hadn’t seen anyone, alive or dead in this burg, and it was a little creepy. The roadmap said there was a population of one hundred and thirty two, but none of them was out and about.

I started to get that old familiar feeling when something was seriously wrong, and I was feeling it now about Nordaway. I called Charlie on the radio to see what he thought.

That was the feeling. I looked over at Sarah and she nodded, pulling out her handgun and checking the magazine at the same time. There was something wrong about this place, and I wasn’t going to give it a chance to nail us. One thing I had learned over the years was to trust my instincts and this place was telling me to get the hell out now.

“All right. Let’s pull out of here. If there is anyone here, they’re holed up pretty well, and if they’re dead, they’re not going anywhere.” I told Sarah to make a note of the place for the army when they came back to sweep this area.

“All right, just a minute.” I rolled to a stop on the road just north of Tenth Avenue. There was a house off to the east and a grain elevator further down the road, its grey tubes reaching for the noon sky.

I opened the window and listened intently, marveling again how quiet the world had become since the Upheaval. I could hear some insects in the grass, and a small rustling of the corn stalks as the breeze played around the leaves, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Just as a started to pick up the radio to tell Duncan he was an idiot, I heard a sound that didn’t belong there. I looked over at Sarah and she confirmed what I had heard.

“What the hell is that sound, and why is it familiar?” She asked.

“Don’t know, but you’re right, it is familiar.” The sound died down, was quiet for a minute, and then it started up again. It was a weird clicking noise, as if someone was tapping two small stones together. Only there was a lot of the clicking, as if fifty people were clicking the stones together. It started, stopped and started again.

I opened the door to the truck and Sarah nearly had a heart attack.

“What are you doing?” She hissed. “You don’t know what’s out there!”

I waved her off as I stepped away from the truck. The door was still open and I wasn’t planning on going any further than a few feet, but I wanted to find out if there was anything to see.

Looking over at Charlie and Rebecca in the van, I could see Charlie mouth ‘What the hell?’ at me, but I didn’t think I was in any real danger, not yet anyway.

As I stood there, the clicking noise started again and this time it didn’t let up. It seemed to be coming from the fields, so my first thought was it was insects. I had seen some serious grasshoppers out here on the plains, so that wasn’t outside the possible when it came to the noise.

The sun was warm on my face and I took a step towards the field, picking up a stone in the road. I threw the stone far out into the field, and the clicking stopped immediately.

I got back into the truck and Sarah glared at me. I shook my head at her and said, “I think the noise was some of those big grasshoppers. They stopped when I threw the rock into the field.”

Sarah relaxed then laughed. “Bugs. Jesus, we’re jumpy. Better let Charlie know.”

I agreed and got him up on the radio as we pulled away from Nordaway. Everything would have been normal except he had to ask a nagging question.

“So where are all the people then? Crystal said Nordaway was populated and we haven’t seen anyone at all.”

Well, that killed the relief. Suddenly, I was back on alert and looking very hard at windows and buildings, trying to get a sense of what might have happened to the people here.