The Broken and the Dead (Book 1) (6 page)

There was Old Man Tucker, wearing a blue uniform with a white hat and looking very young and very mean.

“Ah, I see.”

Mom said that Old Man Tucker had been in the Marine Corps and that was the dress uniform that they wore.

“Why would he put this one in the drawer and hang all the others?” Elaine asked.

“I don’t know honey” Mom said handing it back to Elaine, “but I am sure he has his reasons.” 

“Should I pack any of the pictures Mom? I mean look he has a shrine to this lady” Elaine said as waved at all of the photos of the beautiful woman.

“No, I don’t think so, honey. If Mr. Tucker wants to bring any I am sure he will.”

Mom smiled softly and then turned towards me and Billy standing in the door.

“And you two, did you finish your job?”

We both nodded and said yes and she then put a hand on each of our shoulders and turned us towards the hallway.

“Good” she said, “I have a few other things I think you can help with, now where is your sister?”

As we walked my Mom began reeling off a long list of things she wanted done.

Old Man Tucker and Mrs. Driscol moved cautiously down the street, they were talking no chances, not wanting to run into another group of wandering crazies. There were signs of battle everywhere, burned out cars and homes. Bodies both alone and in small groups littered the way.

“I don’t hear any gunfire” Mrs. Driscol said.

“I don’t either and I don’t like it one bit” Old Man Tucker responded.

They passed a number of vehicles but none of them seemed usable having either been shot up or having crashed. Many of them had blood smeared on the windows and seats; some had mangled corpses in them as well. After about an hour and a half they got into the business part of town, they could see the golden arches had been knocked over by a cement truck and were in the street. There was a constant and growing sense of dread for them. The air was putrid with smoke and it was growing stronger. All sorts of things had been burnt, rubber, plastics, wood and people. Mrs. Driscol pulled a large hanky from her pocket and wrapped it around her face, tying it so to act as a filter. Eventually they could see the Toyota dealership, the multicolored flags moving gently in a corrupt breeze. They knelt next to each other and Old Man Tucker raised his rifle and looked through the scope. After a moment or two he said,

“I see a couple of crazies but that’s all, one is in the lot, the other in the showroom.”

“How do you know they are crazies?” Mrs. Driscol asked.

“They have been eating someone” was his reply.

“Well, what do you want to do?” she responded.

Old Man Tucker did not answer instead a terrifically loud bang echoed through the area and the crazy in the lot flew backwards, his head nearly coming off. He worked the bolt and drove a second round home. Mrs. Driscol could see the other crazy now; it was banging on the glass trying to get out seeing what was going on. Indeed it was covered in blood and had trails of it running down his chin. A second explosion and the glass shattered inwards as the crazy’s body disappeared from sight, then he worked the bolt for a second time. Old Man Tucker watched for another minute or so but not seeing anything he slowly rose and put the rifle on his shoulder. He took out one of the colts and said

“Come on, let’s go car shopping.”

They circled around the lot, the cars were covered with soot from a large apartment complex that had burned down across the divided highway from the dealership. Still there was no one moving, not survivor, not crazy. Old Man Tucker looked over at his shoulder at Mrs. Driscol. For the first time he realized how attractive the slim young mother was. She was holding the Berthier carbine like a pro and her eyes scanned the horizon. ‘Good for her’ he thought to himself. He just prayed that if push comes to shove she wouldn’t hesitate. They circled all the way around to the far side of the building where the customer service center entrance was located. He slowly opened the door and a soft bell rang and they slowly entered. There was a counter on one side with a thick plexi-glass separating the parts center from the customers. Opposite that were a half dozen service bays and a couple of vehicles were still in there. Old Man Tucker whispered to Mrs. Driscol,

“Keep both eyes and both ears open” and she nodded agreement.

There was a small waiting room for customers and then the main hall with salesperson offices on either side. Mrs. Driscol tapped Old Man Tucker on the shoulder and pointed to a name plate that read

“G. Gardner, Sales Manager.”

He smiled and they let themselves in the office. It was a typical thing, desk, cheap faux leather chair, computer and a long rack of clip boards each pre-loaded with contracts. Behind the desk set in one wall was what they were looking for. A large steel locker labeled “Keys.”

Old Man Tucker pointed to the door and then to both eyes indicating that Mrs. Driscol should watch the door she nodded assent. The lock box was secure and a quick search of the desk yielded no results. Old Man Tucker reached into his back pocket and took out a long flat head screw driver and began to pry at the seam. He was having difficulty getting it started and eventually leaned his Moisan against the wall and using a small marble ‘world’s best boss’ award as a hammer, he finally got the blade of the screwdriver where he wanted it. He put the award down and with both hands put all his considerable weight on the screwdriver. There was a creaking sound and then a loud metallic pop as the latch was pried free of the frame. Dozens of sets of car keys were arranged on pegs inside. Luckily there was a lookup chart on a piece of printed card stock taped to the inside of the door. After a few minutes Old Man Tucker picked two sets of keys, he turned to Mrs. Driscol and said

“Shoreline pearl blue or Pre-dawn mica grey?”

“What?” Mrs. Driscol whispered.

He asked a second time “Shoreline pearl or Pre-dawn mica?”

Mrs. Driscol was a little flustered, “um, I don’t know, blue.” she said in an exasperated voice.

“Damn” Old Man Tucker said, “You got the sunroof” and he tossed her one set of the keys.

Mrs. Driscol rolled her eyes and stepped out of the way and Old Man Tucker headed for the car lot.

“They are both Highlander Hybrids” he said. “Look for inventory HH0114 and HH0121” he added.

They headed to the far side of the lot just past the pickups.

“Are they big enough?” Mrs. Driscol asked.

“They are supposed to seat 7, both have roof racks for storage and they both have on-demand 4 wheel drive. I think they are just the ticket.”

A few minutes later they found both of the vehicles. They both started right up but as they had anticipated neither had much gas, less than a quarter tank but they had more than enough to get home and get everyone packed before they started to look for fuel. The cars were comfortable and easy to drive and they pulled into the cul-de-sac in less than 10 minutes. They pulled both cars down by the house, load there first was the plan, then back to where everything had been removed from the other cars and lined up on the curb. For the first time Old Man Tucker remembered that Mrs. Caulfield had been killed in the accident but there had been no sign of the body. Old Man Tucker hoped that her husband had taken care of things rather than the crazies. He decided that he was not going to ask and he hoped that it wouldn’t come up.

Everyone came out of the house and started right away loading, Old Man Tucker put Billy on one roof and me on the other,

“Keep an eye out boys and let me know if you see anything or even if you just THINK you saw something.”

We nodded and Billy saluted and said “yes sir.”

Old Man Tucker smiled and said “get to it.”

It took a long time to load the vehicles and they even had to unload one of them just to rearrange everything. The SUVs were pulled down by the van and the other cars and we walked down by them. For the first time I was feeling very exposed and my stomach felt like it was full of butterflies. The bodies of the crazies that the police officer and Old Man Tucker had killed were all about, they had started to swell up and they smelled like a skunk on the side of the road. I think everyone was feeling the same as me because the equipment was loaded in record time. It only took a minute or two for Mr. Caulfield and Old Man Tucker to move the roof top carrier shell from Mom’s van to one of the SUVs. At last we began our pursuit of Mr. and Mrs. Franks.

It was decided that Mrs. Driscol would drive one and Mom would drive the other. Mr. Caulfield would ride with Billy and his Mom, Old Man Tucker with mine. To even things out a little Elaine offered to ride with the Driscols. I had kind of wanted to ride with Billy but I didn’t say anything right then, I figured this was going to take a while and there would be plenty of time for us to shuffle around. Old Man Tucker was sitting in the passenger seat, he laid his long Russian rifle between the seats and took Mom’s French one and kept it between his knees pointing at the ceiling. Lucy had been put in charge of the road atlas and armed with a yellow highlighter I helped her find where we were and we put a yellow circle around our destination. Mom asked us how far did it look like we had to go and Lucy considered it and finally said,

“From my elbow to the end of my little finger.”

Mom and Old Man Tucker chuckled quietly and Lucy said

“What?” absolutely unaware of what she had said.

Mom had me get a ruler from a little ‘Dora the Explorer’ back pack that she had prepared for entertaining Lucy. She had me measure how many inches it was from our start to our finish and then look in the corner where it said in teeny tiny letters “1 in = 30 mi” and I was able to figure out that since it was about 11 inches we had 330 miles or so to go.

“As a crow flies” Old Man Tucker added.

“What??” was Lucy’s only response causing another bout of repressed laughter.

She crossed her arms and said “I think you are making up words again Mr. Tucker” and this time the laughs were not repressed at all.

Four days; that’s all it was, four days since the swarm and already we could laugh. I look back on it now and realize what a remarkable thing that was. All that loss, all that pain and still we found a moment to laugh amongst ourselves. Of course that was before we knew just how many tears we had yet to shed. As we drove through town, looking for someplace to get gasoline the level of destruction was brought home to the rest of us. Entire city blocks were gone, burnt to the ground. There were hundreds of bodies many that had been reduced to just a few bits and a dark puddle. We rode in silence after that, Lucy sniffling quietly. I was too but I was trying to be as quiet as I could be.

We drove South on Main until we neared the on-ramp to highway 8. There appeared to be a multicar pile up and the sides of the road were steep, too steep to drive around and both the East and West ramps were on the other side of the wreck.

“Maybe you and Lee, um, Mr. Caulfield could move a one of them, you know put it in neutral and push it?” Mom said.

Old Man Tucker looked deep in thought and didn’t answer right away Mom started to get out of the car when Old Man Tucker reached over and pulled her back into the car.

“What on Earth?” she snapped.

“Wait a moment Mrs. Williams. Something isn’t right here, just wait. Okay?”

Mom looked at him and after a moment agreed. Old Man Tucker turned to me and said

“Is your rifle ready?” he asked.

I just nodded I could feel the tension rolling off of him. There was something wild in his eyes.

“Good boy.”

He then turned to my little sister

“Miss Lucy will you be the head look out? I want you to look all around and let your Mommy and Johnny know if you see anything or anyone?”

Lucy said that she would and Old Man Tucker smiled and patted her on her shoulder. He slowly got out of the car; he waved to Mrs. Driscol and Mr. Caulfield to wait where they were.

He pulled the bolt back just to make sure there was a live round in the chamber then slowly walked down the street towards the wrecked cars. He didn’t look like he was trying to hide; I guess he figured that if there was someone there they already knew he was there too. He looked under the cars and then holding the rifle like he was getting ready to shoot it he stepped to look between the cars. He looked back at us and shrugged like he wasn’t sure about this yet. He looked inside first one car then the other, he put the rifle on one hip and opened the door, he reached in to put the car in neutral I guess, and that is when Lucy called out to us

“Mom, Johnny, there are crazies over there.”

She pointed to the thick forest that surrounded us on either side. “Oh shit.” Mom whispered. I looked back to see Billy and the others just watching us.

“I pointed to the trees and then held up my rifle.”

They looked in the direction I pointed and I could see the panic in their response. They all started getting their weapons ready. I looked back at Old Man Tucker who was trying to move the car, pushing it backwards towards the guard rail. I could see the crazies moving through the trees towards us and towards Old Man Tucker.

“What do we do Mom?”

My hands were sweating even though the weather was cool. Mom’s hands were fidgeting on the steering wheel when she seemed to get an idea. She pressed on the car horn and held it down; the crazies seemed startled as if this were something they hadn’t planned on. Old Man Tucker looked up at us and then all around, I guess he saw them because he raised his rifle and with a tremendous explosion dropped one of the crazies. He started yelling and moving his arm in a circle,