Revenence: Dead of Winter: A Zombie Novel (22 page)

     At the motorcycle supply shop, they found the place to be firmly locked.  Upon considering their options, they concluded that the best, quickest course of action would be to break the front window.  Shari glanced around the parking lot.  There were a few undead wandering in from another strip mall down the way, on the main road.

     "Daphne," she said, "you think you can handle these?"

     "Shouldn't be a problem," Daphne said.  "Go on in.  Hurry up, and we'll try not to leave you stranded."

     "Everyone look out," Shari said, reaching back to grasp her drywall hammer.  She raised it, swinging the hatchet end first.  The blade made contact with the glass, forming a central crack surrounded by countless small, concentric lines.  She flipped the hammer in her hands, swinging the other end into the crack she had made.  Shards large and small rained into the interior of the store, and she raised a leather-clad leg to kick away enough of the glass to allow entry into the store.

     "If your goal was to alert the zombies to our presence," Phoebe said as she climbed in behind Shari, "then congratulations, madame, for your have succeeded in your endeavor."

     "Daphne can handle the ones out there," Shari said.  "At least until she tells us otherwise.  Did you know of a quicker way to get in here?"  Phoebe brushed silently past her.  "Yeah, that's what I thought.   Now gear up, so we can get outta here."

     Phoebe and the Professor perused the racks and shelves while Shari kept her eyes peeled for anything tiny enough for a toddler.  She found a small, circular rack full of leather jackets in youth sizes.  She flipped through the hangers, guessing Finn was probably around a 4T.  The closest she found was a 6T, and she figured it was better to err on the side of too large, rather than too small.  She headed toward the helmets, Finn's new coat tucked under her arm.  She quickly found a dirtbike helmet in a  child's size.  She examined it, noting that it was clearly made for an older child with a slightly larger cranium, and it was purple.  She concluded that it would have to do, as it was the smallest headgear available.

     She stepped through the jagged hole in the front window, handing Hugo the jacket and helmet.  "Help Finn get these on," she said.  "I'm going back in."

     "Make it quick," Daphne said, pointing to the southern entrance of the shopping center.  "A lot of them are going to find a way to bypass the wrecks if we sit here too much longer."

     Shari noted a few headed their way, still roughly a quarter-mile away.  A larger crowd could be seen further down the road.  She ducked back into the window.  "You should only have those few to worry about," she said.  "We'll be out before the others get here."

     "Are they holding it down out there?" the Professor asked.

     "For now," Shari said, "but we have to make our final selections and get the fuck out, or else they'll be overwhelmed within the next few minutes."

     Phoebe stripped off her duster, jeans and tank top.  "Sorry, people," she said, shimmying into a leather top.  "No time for modesty."  She pulled on a pair of leather pants and the military-style boots she had already been wearing, along with her duster.

     "Find yourself a good pair of gloves," Shari suggested, scouring the racks for pants small enough for a toddler.  "At least something to go over your palms and wrists."

     "I think I'm ready," the Professor said. He stepped out from behind a tall shelf, where he had changed into a dark blue dirtbike suit, helmet and gloves.

     "Good," Daphne said, leaning partially in through the window, "because we have to go.  Now."

     "I'm ready," Phoebe said, climbing through the window.  She had found a pair of fingerless hot-pink gloves and a dirtbike helmet that was matching pink and black.

     "You have less than a minute," Daphne told Shari as Phoebe and the Professor mounted their bicycles.

     Shari frantically scoured the racks, looking for the smallest pants she could find.  She settled on a womens size 0 petite, then headed for the belts.  She found a childrens' one-size-fits-all, then made her way to the window.

     "Shit," she muttered, turning back. 

     "Shari!" Daphne hissed from outside, launching a sharpened stick at the closest of a small herd of undead, a mere two storefronts down.

     Inside the store, Shari grabbed the first child-sized pair of leather gloves she came across.  Once again, they were too big, but she was all out of time to be picky.

     She dashed back to the window, scraping the back of her thigh on a shard of glass in her haste.  Although the leather of her pant leg remained intact, she knew that there was at least a moderate wound beneath the clothing.

     Daphne was already speeding away on the ATV when Shari reached her horse.  She hoisted her weight up and sat at the rear.  Hugo, now at the front, slapped the reins and took off after Daphne.  Shari swung her leg over the horse's hindquarters, grabbing onto Hugo and inching forward while Finn sat sandwiched between them, his arms clinging tightly to Hugo's torso.

     They stopped after traveling a few miles northward down Route 1, taking advantage of the visibility offered by a soyfield, roughly a quarter section in size.

     "Let me see your knife," Shari said to Daphne.

     "Why?" Daphne asked, handing over her titanium blade.

     "Because," Shari said, "these pants are way too long for little dude."  She reached up, lifting Finn from under the armpits and lowering him to the ground.  She held the waistband up to his waist, measuring how much she would have to cut off.  She sliced off nearly half of the length, using the gut hook at the end of Daphne's blade.  She removed Finn's construction boots and traded his jeans for the badly tailored leather pants, cinching them with the belt as tightly as she could.  She replaced his boots, making sure that the pants came down past his ankles.  She had left the length slightly long to make sure they covered his entire leg.

     "There," she told him, taking the gloves out from her jacket pocket, "let's get these on you and you'll be all set."

     She slid the gloves, with some difficulty, onto his tiny hands. She squeezed the fingertips, realizing that the tips of the gloves came out more than an inch past his fingertips. 

     "That won't do," she said, reaching into a saddlebag for a sharp pair of cuticle scissors.  She cut the tips off of all ten fingers, then slid the gloves once more onto Finn's hands.  "That's better.  Just long enough."

     Finn gave his fingers a wiggle.  "Thanks, Shari," he said.

     "No problem, little guy," Shari said.  "We've gotta keep you safe, right?"  She lifted him, setting him on the saddle behind Hugo.

     "You want your spot back?" Hugo asked.

     "Nah," Shari said as she mounted and situated herself behind Finn.  "You drive for now.  Get some practice."

     They continued down Route 1, able to keep to the highway most of the way.  Their journey was generally uneventful except for a stop to siphon some gas for the ATV.  They passed through Rossville, Hoopeston, and approached the small town of Milford around midday.

     A uniformed zombie, old enough to have been turned since day one, appeared from a property just south of Sugar Creek, which formed the southern boundary of the town.  It shuffled in a pitifully ineffective attempt to ambush the living riding down the road.  Daphne threw a sharpened stick into the weathered, weakened skull, never turning her head from the road in front of her.

     They stopped north of town, where the countryside was open enough to see the windfarms of Sheldon, ten miles to the northeast.  The six of them had only snacked since leaving the farm outside of Danville early that morning.

     Shari helped Finn take off his gloves and helmet, then rummaged through her bag to see what she had to offer him for lunch.  Finn, perusing his options carefully, chose a single-serving, microwaveable cup of franks 'n' beans, a box of orange juice, and a packet of fruit snacks.  Shari searched a pocket of her backpack until she located a wrapped plastic spork.

     "I never thought I'd be eating this much shelf food," she said as she unwrapped the spork.  "And be damn grateful for it, at that."

     "There are some wild blackberries down the way," the Professor said, pointing.

     Shari narrowed her eyes, peering at the long, tangled canes growing around and into the perimeter of the nearest soyfield.  "I'll be damned," she said.  "I've seen those all over the place, ever since we left Champaign."

     "They grow like weeds around here," the Professor said, "all through the region, particulary from Champaign to Kankakee Counties."  He sighed as he continued.  "When I was a young man, still attending the University as a student, me and my group of friends used to roam the countryside all night in the summer, subsisting mostly on blackberries, cheap wine and mary jane."

     "I can't believe you smoked weed," Phoebe said as she nibbled a chocolate bar.

     The Professor scoffed.  "Really, Phoebe?  I started college in the late sixties and majored in astronomy with a minor in environmental sciences."

     "Yep," Shari said with a grin, "hippie.  Case closed."

     "My point, exactly," the Professor said.  "Anyway, by '69, I got drafted into the Air Force, and I was forced to trade those high-flying good times for an F111-Aardvark.  By the time I came back," he concluded, "the sixties were over."

     "Harsh come-down," Phoebe remarked.

     "Yeah," Shari agreed.  "Wait a minute--you said Aardvark.  Is that a plane?"

     "Sure is," the Professor said.  "Long-range bomber.  I've flown that, plus a handful of other aircraft here and there."

     "Dude," Hugo said, his eyes large, "that's awesome."

     "Hmm," Shari said.  "Interesting."

     "I can guess what you're thinking," the Professor said, "and to be honest, the thought has occurred to me, as well.  The reality, though, is that we don't have a plane, on top of the fact it would need fuel and I'd have to be able to figure out how to fly it."

     "Maybe we'll come across one," Shari said.  "A lot of farmers have cropdusters, right?"

     "They do," the Professor said, "but there's no way we're jamming this many people in one of those, let alone all of our stuff.  We would need some kind of Cessna."

     "Let's make it a point to check outbuildings," Shari said.  "At least on the more palatial farm estates.  Somebody's bound to have a plane big enough."

     "While we're on the subject," Daphne said, "what exactly do you plan on doing with your horse?"

     "I don't know," Shari confessed.  "I've thought about it, and I know a time will come where I have to either figure something out or set her free, but at this point, I really don't know what to say."

     They finished their lunch and prepared to continue their travel.  Hugo, having finished eating, fiddled with a portable ham radio while he waited for the others.  Finn had wandered over to the blackberry canes, where he was busily foraging. 

     "Good idea, kiddo," Shari said as she joined him.  She ate a few fresh from the canes, then filled the bag from the cookies she had just consumed.  She tucked the bag into an outer pocket on Finn's backpack.

     "There you go," she said, taking his hand and leading him toward Eva.  "We have some to snack on later."

     They headed further north on Route 1 until they were roughly halfway between Milford and nearby Watseka.  At that point, they took a county road into Indiana, traveling east until they reached U.S. 52, where they took a left.  Shortly after turning onto 52, they came across a sign informing them that the Kentland Municipal Airport was about 10 miles to their north.

     "I know where we're stopping," Shari called to the others.

     "Maybe our luck will change," Phoebe called back, "seeing as our searches so far have yielded jack shit."

     To the left of the road, a field sat overgrown with weeds and wildflowers, apparently never planted before the apocalypse had come in the spring.  On the far side of the field, Shari saw a small herd of undead wandering south, their sizes rangingfrom between around three and six feet tall.  She refocused her attention on the road, glad to have an excuse to avoid overthinking the sight.

     They reached the airport slightly less than an hour later.  They could tell as they approached that the level of undead activity was slightly elevated in the area, though not overwhelmingly so.  Shari felt suddenly and intensely relieved that the entire group, especially the toddler, was now protected head to toe, minimizing the risk of anyone being turned.

     Upon closer inspection, it became clear that most, if not all, of the undead in the area seemed to be quite weathered and impaired.  Shari did a quick head count, noting that there were roughly two dozen visible, milling around a large outbuilding near the runway.  She supposed there were likely to be more on the far side of the building.

     "I think the two of us can handle this," Shari told Daphne, "melee-style."

     "I've got at least a dozen sticks left," Daphne said, launching one into the nearest zombie, who had been making a futile attempt to approach the group.  As the pointed stick entered the ruined face, it took much of the dry, leathery facial tissue with it, burrowing deep into the commpromised cranial cavity.  Daphne reached into her pouch for more sticks.  "So that means I can take out at least a dozen of them from here."