Stay Dead 2: The Dead and The Dying (21 page)

35 STOCKPILING

(back to
top)

With little trouble the next day came
and so did the next day’s tasks. Walter, Jeff, and Barbara were up
and ready to go by the time the rest of the household trickled down
the stairs. Jeff hugged and kissed his little ones goodbye. They
were upset with him for leaving, and as much as it tore him open he
knew he had to go out so that they could have a better tomorrow. Or
at least the chance of one. He gave his wife a kiss, and Walter did
the same. They were both told to be safe and Barbara stood around
awkwardly just wanting to leave already and get it over
with.

“
We ready?”

Walter nodded, “Yep, let’s get on with
it.”

“
Are you coming back for
lunch?”

“
I don’t know, we’ll be
gone however long it takes. So don’t count on it I
guess.”

“
Daddy, I want to come too.
I can help,” Tommy said, standing tall.

“
Oh, Tommy-boy, I know you
can help me, but I need you here. You have to look after your
little brother and sister,” then Jeff got down on his knee and
leaned in close to whisper, “and you have to keep grandma, and
mommy safe too. They’re old ladies.”

Tommy thought about this for a second.
His mom and grandma were old, he thought. And Sandra and Wally were
too little to help out, “Okay. I’ll stay and protect
them.”

Tommy raised his chin proudly, smiling
at his father.

They drove off to the last house they
had scavenged the other day and picked up where they left off.
There was a lonely deader staggering a few feet down the street.
Initially it was walking in the other direction, but upon hearing
their arrival it had turned around and started walking towards
them.

“
I got it,” Jeff said,
walking towards it briskly.

He quickly dispatched the dead thing
and left it to twitch in the street.

They hit the few homes on the street,
yielding plenty of supplies with each one. They had even scored a
few weapons as well: a shotgun, and three handguns, each with a few
boxes of ammunition. Whomever they belonged to was obviously trying
to prepare for the deaders as they were sitting loaded at a small
kitchen table, loaded and ready to fire. Also on the table was a
radio and flashlight, which they took as well.

“
Building up our arsenal,”
Walter smiled as he put them in the back of the truck.

“
Not a bad
haul.”

“
Gupp’s?”

Jeff nodded and took a turn behind the
wheel. Driving off to the Gupp’s Hardware, the local store that
Walter and his son routinely visited almost every weekend during
the spring for one thing or another.

“
Going house to house I
kind of hoped we’d run into someone.”

“
Anyone in
particular?”

“
No. Just anyone alive, ya
know, surely there has to be more of us left in town.”

“
I’ve been thinking about
that too. I’m sure there has to be, but there were a lot of them
things that came through town.”

“
Maybe we should drive
around looking for others?”

“
Maybe, kiddo, maybe. Let’s
go to Gupp’s first though, see if we can’t scrounge up some fencing
materials.”

“
Where would we start,
though? If we were going to look for others?”

“
I’d want to hit the police
station first. I think that’s where most people would still try to
go to for help, and Davis was organizing everyone from there if any
of his people are left I’d think they would still operate out of
there.”

“
Worst case, maybe we can
find some more guns, too.”

“
Well, here we
are.”

“
The police station is
right down the street. Should we go check it out first?”

“
Let’s stay on task, okay.
Once we finish up here we can head over there later. Look at
this…it’s nice and boarded up. Looks just the way they left
it.”

They walked around the building,
making sure no deaders were in the area, and came back around to
the front entrance.

“
I sure do hate doing
this,” Walter said, before he smashed out the glass on the front
door.

“
No alarm.”

“
They had a silent alarm. I
remember they switched it out, because the old one would always get
tripped on accident, and the damned thing was blaring. He just got
fed up and upgraded his system.”

Walter reached in and spun the lock,
opening the door. He didn’t think a deader would be in the store,
but he entered cautiously all the same. Barbara followed and Jeff
hung back momentarily, making sure they wouldn’t be followed in by
anyone, or anything.

“
All right,” Jeff said,
catching up with them, “they have what we want?”

“
Not sure, but take a few
of these snow shovels back to the truck will ya?”

“
Snow shovels.
Really?”

“
Hopefully we’ll be able to
use them, no?”

“
Yeah. I guess I hope
so.”

Walter looked around. The place was
nearly empty. Practically wiped clean. All the practical things
that one might think to acquire while in an emergency were gone;
batteries, flashlights, gas cans, extension cords, etc. Thinking
outside of the box, Walter looked at a pallet of spring seed mix.
Why would anyone have wanted to grab these earlier? Walter saw they
could be used like sandbags.

He spun around. Noting the shovels,
rakes, hoes, and then noticed a few post diggers, “Barbara, go
bring those out to Jeff.”

She bundled them up in her arms and
carried them out.

There was no lumber left in the store,
but Walter spotted several bags of QuickCrete and figured they’d be
good for something eventually--at least for setting the posts. As
soon as his kids came back he had them carry those out as
well.

By the time they were ready to head
home they had found some machetes, scores of nails and screws,
random tools, chainsaws, toilet paper from the backroom, cases of
soda for the small vending machine near the register. Surprisingly
the hodgepodge of goods took up the bed of the truck. Walter wanted
to come back for the pallet of seed mix, but found he had to
explain for what.

“
You really want us to come
back for seed mix?”

“
Think of them as
sandbags.”

“
Okay, but for
what?”

“
For fortification, what
else?”

“
With no fence, what do we
fortify?”

“
Whatever we need to.
Besides, just because we didn’t find what we need here doesn’t mean
we abort the fence. There’s more than one way to skin a
cat.”

“
We’re not skinning
cats.”

“
We can fortify the door,
the porch--What will it hurt to come back for it?”

“
Our backs, and our gas
tank.”

“
Then I’ll come back myself
for it.”

“
Fine. Fine, we’ll come
back for it. Now let’s go bring this shit home, okay?”

***

Only a block away from Walter and his
kids Davis stared down at the floor of the holding cell.

I’m not going to die in here. I’m not
going to die in here.

This was his mantra. He would not
accept this place as his last. He knew he would get out eventually.
If only he could convince the others, who already looked as if
they’d resigned themselves to death.

“
Why is this happening?”
Danni asked.

“
Just stop it, okay?” Keith
said, growing angry with the young woman. “It’s not fucking fair,
we get it. We know it. Just deal with it okay?”

“
Someone will come looking
for us,” Davis said, “there has to be someone left. There has to
be…”

36 THROUGH THE WRECKAGE

(back to
top)

“
Okay, kids,” Scott said,
“This is the part where you need to be big and strong, okay? We
need you to stick together and stay close. Don’t go running off,
don’t touch anything, understand?”

They nodded in unison. They understood
the drill, or at least the speech, but listening and doing what
they were asked of were usually very different things.

Alexis took Stacey by the hand. Janice
held Yussef’s. Abdul kept Chris on his shoulders. Judy, Dawn, and
Jon-Jon agreed to look after Leela and Nick. Jon-Jon walked behind
them while Judy took Nick’s hand, and Dawn took Leela’s. In Leela’s
other hand she still clung to her small stuffed lion.

Chuck and Chung-Hee continued to stay
at the tail end of the group, while Frankie, Eddie, and Joseph led
them forward.

“
Hang back a little,” Eddie
called back as they approached the tollbooths.

The three of them walked forward
cautiously, observing every open door and blood trail on the way to
the cash only lane. The windows of the booths were all smeared in
blood and the waning sunlight made it look like liquid
rust.

Frankie stepped ahead in eager
fashion, hoping to find something to hit. Eddie stuck close, but
knew it best to stay two steps behind and make sure there weren’t
any surprises to be had by speeding up.

They were now at the coin toss and all
was quiet. The amount of abandoned cars was staggering and the
scene before them was surreal and disconcerting. It reminded them
of how quickly the world turned to shit in those first few days.
Walking through the aftermath painted a detailed picture for them.
A picture so clear they could almost hear the screams and cries of
panic and pain twisting and crashing and burning like so much
rubber and steel on the blood soaked asphalt.

Joseph waived the group to come
forward—Abdul led them, being careful to check his surroundings as
he moved, but not so much to jostle and make nauseous his little
human passenger, Chris. The tiny blond haired boy had been through
so much that he appeared more like a ghost than a child. A
wafer-thin boy with the haunted eyes of and old dying man. He’d
gotten carsick a time or two, and didn’t do to well while eating
straight from the can, so the last thing Abdul wanted was for the
boy to vomit all over the both of them.

As the rest of the group started
moving along, Frankie, Eddie, and Joseph moved forward once again.
The bridge almost immediately began to incline.

“
My legs are going to be
jelly by the time we get over this bitch.”

“
Yeah man, I can already
feel it. Maybe we can just roll down the other side?”

“
Guys,” Scott called over,
“What about the boats? Can we see anything from here?” Scott asked
as he hurried over to the side of the bridge.

“
Let’s look.”

“
Damn. They’re pretty far
away,” Joseph noted.

“
I figured they would’ve
been closer.”

“
Not at all.
Shit.”

“
It looks like it would
take us just as much time to get to one of them as it would to
cross this thing.”

As the rest of the group caught up,
Jon-Jon picked up on what they were talking about and joined in, “I
know the Tarrytown Marina isn’t that far once we cross over. But
we’d be moving northwest to get there and that would take us away
from Connetiticut.”

“
It might be worth it. We
can move faster on the water. We would have to go southeast around
Manhattan and Long Island and then back up.”

Frankie started walking away, “First
we gotta get over this fucking thing, right? So let’s get it over
with.”

Eddie started moving as well, “Jon,
can we see the marina from the other side of the
bridge?”

“
Not sure. If we can during
the day, doesn’t mean it’ll be visible by the time we cross over
either.”

“
Yeah, daylights burning up
fast. Let’s get going then.”

Frankie, Eddie, and Joseph took the
lead once again, trying to move fast up the bridge while they still
had sunlight.

“
You hear that?”

“
Yeah,” Eddie turned to the
group, holding up his hand for them to wait.

They kept moving, the sound getting
louder.

Skkkkurrrrtch.

Skkkkurrrrrrrtch.

Skkkkuuuuurrrrrrrtch.

Frankie held the pry-bar out to his
side, half cocked and ready to swing. Eddie pulled a bat from his
backpack and held it with both hands. Joseph stood at the ready
with a tire iron, positioning himself to be able to move quickly in
any direction.

Skkkkuuuuurrrrrrrtch.

The sound was upon them, but they
couldn’t see anything. Eddie looked around inside the cars—nothing.
Joseph could see nothing over them either.

“
I can smell the fucker,
but where is it?”

As Frankie asked the question
something grabbed his ankle and pulled.