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ZOMBIE: MISSION ZERO

Copyright 2018 W. G. Sweet. All rights reserved foreign and domestic.

Portions copyright 2010, 2014, 2015 by W. G. Sweet.

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June 2nd

On the Road

Kentucky

Pearl

The truck was on its last leg, but it shouldn’t matter. She had to be close. She approached a long curve in the highway and saw the nearly overgrow sign for the state park sticking out of a thick stand of trees. In the world of old, those trees would have been trimmed back so that the sign was prominent. In this world there was no one to do it.

She had spoken to someone just last evening who claimed to be part of The Nation. The Nation was a growing community of survivors who had banded together to start over, they were somewhere on the other side of this state park. Seventy miles or so straight into the wilderness, at least that was their best estimate.

The Nation had begun not long before. A small group that had made their way in and were even now building a new society from the ground up, joined by others almost daily. It sounded too good to be true, but she had been assured it was far from perfect, less she should be disappointed or decide to pass it by. It made little difference to her, she had spoken to them more than once and she believed in it now. It spoke volumes about safety to her, and safety was what she desired.

She had left group after group on her way south from Watertown. For some time she had been sure she would continue on southward to the ocean, but the more she had heard about this place the more she had become convinced that it was calling to her. It sounded like a safe place. Seventy miles from the old world.

She knew there was no guarantee, that the corruption that held the old world now could reach her there, it probably would eventually, but it seemed the safest of all the choices she had entertained during her sleepless nights, and it was the only one that continued to call to her.

She finished the curve, slowed, and then dropped the truck down off the pavement and onto the broken pavement of the park entrance. She shifted into park and the truck idled, wheezing as it did, the engine stuttering. Maybe, she thought, the old truck didn’t have seventy more miles in it. She had found it sitting in the driveway of an overgrown farm, and it had, had a well used look to it. She could only stop, take the time to pull the plugs and clean them, and hope it solved the poor idle. That or travel a little farther down the road and hope there was something not too far that could replace it.

She shut the truck down. She would stick to the old farm truck. It was easy to work on. It had seen her all this way. At the most she would end up on foot, and that didn’t really matter. She knew where she was going. It was clearly marked. She would find ruts from the other vehicles that had come this way, the last just a few weeks before. Ribbons tied to trees in places. She wouldn’t even be the first that had walked in.

She stretched her long legs and arched her back as she stepped down from the cab: There was a smell on the air, elusive for an instant, but it set her nerves on edge just the same. She reached behind the seat and came out with a hand scythe. She had found it in the back of the truck and had immediately adopted it as her weapon of choice against the dead. The blade was coated with a thick layer that looked like rust at first glance. She had lost count of how many times it had saved her. The perfect weapon, in her mind.

Pearl walked to the overgrown sign and a few minutes of work with the blade cleared the shrubbery away. Something she had promised to do. It would help others to find the place, and there were many others on the way. She may be one of the first, but she would not be the last. It also took the edge off her nervousness. She tested the blade with a thumb: Still sharp. Ready for the dead or anything else that thought to test her. She had just moved to return the blade to the truck, thinking maybe she had been mistaken after all, when she had caught a slight movement to her right that had seemed out of tune with everything else. Once there had been a time when she had ignored things like that: No longer. The scythe had been back in her hands before the shambling wreck of a zombie had staggered from the treeline and came for her.

She shoved the door shut with the flat of her boot, took two small steps and then lunged at the woman as she continued toward her, teeth gnashing, arms reaching. The scythe caught one forearm, sliced through it easily, and then took the woman’s head from her shoulders. It was easy. Too easy, and the thought caused a spark of panic to ignite within her that caused her to instantly spin on her feet. The panic saved her life.

They were so smart, she thought, as she struck out with the scythe and impaled the head of a zombie that had quickly closed in on her. The zombie immediately became dead weight and she had to release the scythe and let it sink to the ground with the zombie. She turned quickly, pulling her machine pistol around in front of her and opened up on the remaining two dead that had been trying for her blind side. They crumpled on the path still ten feet away. She turned, took two quick steps and shot the first zombie through the head. Although the head had been separated it had not been shot through: The brain was intact. It could live forever that way and be a danger to anyone who encountered it. She returned and wrenched her scythe free from the other zombies head, one booted foot against the skull as she pulled it free.

The silence of the deep forest beyond the road took over and a peace came with it. She backtracked to the truck, sat on the front bumper and let her breathing slow. A few moments later she started the truck once more and coasted down into the park itself. A half hour later and she had set up a small camp with the truck as its central point. A fire burned hot, little smoke, but what there was caught in the thick overgrowth of trees and limbs instead of rising up into the sky, spreading the fear of the living into the surrounding woods.

Morning

Pearl came awake slowly, sunlight peeking through the tree limbs high in the canopy, arrowing through the windshield and flashing off the painted dashboard. She stretched and then sat upright. Her eyes looking over the campsite, most of which was still in shadow, as she allowed her mind to wake up. Empty. No sign of any late night visitors.

She had rekindled the fire and had a pot of coffee going in no time. The coffee was a compromise. She would have preferred tea, but most of what Americans considered tea, she considered unfit to drink. It was funny, the differences between the two countries she had called home. Tea had become Americanized, and if she had to have an American drink she preferred coffee. Unpretentious: Hot, strong.

She chewed on some jerky as she sipped at her coffee, and then finished off breakfast with an energy bar. Fruit, raisins and nuts in a mass of honey and raw oats. No one would have ever had to force her to eat one. She considered them delicious.

By early morning she had pulled and cleaned the fouled plugs, kicking herself for not picking up a new set at one of the many automotive car centers she had passed. There were clearly some problems with the cylinders leaking oil. Nothing she hadn’t guessed, and nothing that would keep her from reaching the Nation. She set off down the trail following to the side of some deeper ruts as she made her way out of the state park and into the deep forest.

Late August

Harlem

Bear and Cammy

Bear sat on the stone steps and quietly stared over Harlem. He couldn’t say what precisely had made him come back to this crumbling apartment building where he had lived for so long with Donita. Maybe a vague hope she had come here, but if she had, he had found no evidence of it. He lifted his eyes to the street.

The gangs were out in force at night. They knew the two of them were there. So far they had given them a pass, but Bear had no doubt that, that wouldn’t last much longer. Soon they would try to take them: Take Cammy, he corrected himself. There was no sense in hiding the truth of the way the world was from himself.

The neighborhood had changed for the worse. More than a dozen small quakes had hit over the last few days. The houses were leaning more, including this one. Last night they had received some CB talk coming out of Manhattan. For twenty minutes they had talked back and forth like they were right next door. There were no more illusions. The people he had talked to were with a group that had come cross country, all the way from LA. There was nothing left. It was all gone. There was no help on the way. The Army was not on the way to put things right.

“Hey,” Cammy from beside him. He had been slipping deeper into thought again.

“You were drifting away,” She said, as if she had read his thoughts.

She did that a lot lately, caught him, or he drifted a lot lately, maybe both. “I was… I was thinking about all of it. I think we should go back into Manhattan, wherever they are, outside the city. They sounded legit,” He raised his eyes to hers.

“As legit as anything in this world,” she shrugged. She looked around the street that really wasn’t a street any longer. “Can’t stay here… I know you know that.”

“I know… I think safety, if there is anything like safety any longer, is going to be in numbers. And we don’t have enough numbers. We’re too few.” He looked at her and waited for her acknowledging nod.

“We can be there in a few days. If they are where they say they are,” Cammy added.

“Do you think they aren’t? Did you feel something?” He looked unsure.

“No… I felt they were straight with us, and I felt their offer to join with them was straight too. Got concerns?” Cammy asked.

“Same old stuff. Really it’s all about whether they’re real or not,” Bear said.

Cammy nodded. “I think they are I don’t see the percentage in luring us in there if they’re just fakes. We’ll come armed and ready for bullshit, they have to know that.” Cammy seemed to consider. “I just don’t see it. I think they’re the real deal. I’ve been thinking about it too,” she sighed.

Bear raised his eyebrows.

“The finality of it all. I mean the fact that from here to the other side of the continent the world’s done up,” Cammy said after a lengthy pause.

Bear nodded. “Hard to wrap your head around, I get it. It’s the same for me. So,” Bear brushed his hands against his jeans and then stood from the step. “I guess we should go get a truck and get moving.”

Cammy stood with him. “Where you think for a decent truck?”

“Probably check out on the strip. There are a few custom shops out there, about a dozen car dealerships and a few truck dealerships. I’d like to find something setup for off road. Save us some time screwing around… Probably save road time too.”

“And they aren’t staying there much longer. It will help us when we move on with them,” Cammy added.

“Or strike out on our own,” Bear said.

“South?” Cammy asked.

Bear nodded. “They said the land went into the sea.”

“They said there was land in the distance though,” Cammy said at the same time as Bear. “It got into my head… Well, that’s not exactly true. It’s like I dreamed about it before they said it. Like I knew it would be,” he shrugged. “I know, spooky.”

“Not really. I mean the world is gone. All the things you count on. Maybe now there is survival… Some sense that kicks in and guides you,” Cammy said.

“Now that’s spooky,” Bear said. They both laughed uneasily.

“Still,” Cammy said. She let her argument drift away unstated.

Bear reached over and retrieved his rifle from where it rested against the porch post. He slung it over his shoulder and shrugged once to make it comfortable. “We,” he stared through the open doorway into the house and then stopped. “We don’t need anything here. We were running low all the way around, about time to resupply.” He took two quick steps to the door, tugged at the handle and began to close it. He stopped with the door still partway open and laughed uneasily. “Guess it doesn’t matter anymore,” he said. Cammy smiled, a small, sad smile and she shrugged and turned away.

Bear released the door handle, turned and stepped down off the porch. He turned and looked at the building once they were a few hundred feet away. He walked backwards, taking it in. It looked ready to collapse. It was leaning, the foundation cracked and crumbled in places. He turned and caught up to Cammy. He didn’t look back again.

The Camp

Late August

Billy and Beth

Billy sat sipping coffee by the fire talking over traveling plans when Winston and Rogers walked over. Rogers settled into a conversation with Jamie. Winston raised his eyebrows at Billy. They both got up and walked away from the fire.

“What’s on your mind, Winston?” Billy asked.

“Probably nothing… I had the overnight… Kept hearing something… I don’t know, out of place. The dog kept looking over at the woods… Growling real low… The fires were going, who knows what’s out there…”

Billy nodded. He stuffed his hands down into his pockets.

“That’s it… No big deal… I wasn’t about to walk away from here and go check it out in the middle of the night.” He sipped at his coffee. “Went over first thing, right after daybreak… It was bugging the hell out of me.”

“What was it?” Bear asked.

“Walk over there with me?” He asked.

“Sure,” Billy agreed.

Billy sat his own empty cup down, smiled down at Jamie’s questioning look, “No big deal,” he told her. He turned away, and followed Winston across the road toward the small woods on the other side. Halfway there Jamie caught up, she slipped one arm through Billy’s own. “What is it, Babe?” She asked.

“Don’t know,” Billy told her… “It’s Winston’s show.”

The smell hit them before they reached the woods.

The carcass of a small dog lay rotting a few feet away. The throat torn open, the stomach bloated, swollen, intestines spilling out of her side where whatever had killed her had been feeding. A few feet away a human corpse, whether man or woman it was hard to tell. But whatever had been feeding on the dog had been feeding on the body as well. The head had been dragged several feet away. Most of the chest was gone, and the stomach lay open. A hollowed cavity.

Billy raised his eyes and took in the gloom. His eyes searching the area.

“Some of them been living here,” Winston said quietly.

Jamie stepped back into the small clearing. “Why does it look as though this was cleared,” Jamie said.

“Exactly my question,” Winston said.

“Maybe the body was someone camped out here? … Then this Zombie came along and killed them?” Jamie asked.

No one spoke.

Billy turned back to the clearing from his examination of the surrounding woods. “Trails,” Billy said. He pointed. “There… and there.”

“Might have been here last night…” This from Jamie. “I say it because there’s nothing else here. No other animals have moved in to take what’s left…” She looked at Winston.

He nodded. “I thought that too… It’s maybe not a problem because we’re leaving soon… But that looks… I don’t want to say fresh… But it looks like a new kill. And the dog was barking all night. Looking in this direction. I thought, if they are here, this close,” he shrugged.

“Today,” Billy said. His eyes swept the clearing again. “This morning. Maybe last night”

“Yeah,” Scotty agreed.

“Probably should keep this to ourselves,” Billy added.

Winston nodded. “My thoughts.”

“But I guess we better check the areas we stay in closer,” Jamie said. “Who knows what might have happened…” She turned and looked through the woods and across the field. Their camp was easily visible. She shuddered. Winston caught her eyes and blinked. Billy caught the interplay.

“Yeah,” Billy said. “Yeah…. Probably crouched here, hidden, and watched us.”

“Do they do that?” Jamie asked.

“Sure,” Billy said.

“Because it seems like hunters,” Jamie added.

“Zombies are hunters,” Billy said.

 “I didn’t believe in smart Zombies,” Winston said. “But one day I was checking out this building… A few weeks back, over on Fourth… Smelled bad… Like this, but a building. I didn’t connect it. I chased one into a room… And then, before I could react, there were four more coming up behind me. They had to have been tracking me, and staying quiet too. Following me through that building. Nearly got me before I could move… Set me up. I swear it.” He shrugged. “That’s it. I didn’t believe. Not until then. But it was clear they had thought it out” he finished quietly.

“Then it don’t matter unless they’re smarter than you,” Jamie said quietly. “In other words, don’t underestimate them.”

Silence held for a few minutes. The gloom began to get to them. It seemed twenty degrees cooler out of the sunlight.

“Shouldn’t we bury the guy?” Jamie asked.

Billy stopped. “Jamie, better tell Beth… Better send her over, in fact… She’s been lying low, but she’ll want to know about this.”

“They’ll, probably come back and dig it back up,” Winston said. He looked around nervously.

“Yeah. But we’re going to do it anyway… Go on back and talk to Beth… Keep it low key. Don’t mention this to anyone else… Maybe tell them the dead were following us, if you have to, but not the smart stuff,” he sighed. “We’re going to have to leave… A few days more at the most and we’ll have to decide and go…” he looked at Jamie. She turned her eyes to him. “Okay?” he asked.

Jamie nodded. “Just scares me,” she said. She looked away. It only took the mention of Beth’s name to piss her off lately, Billy knew.

Billy nodded. “Winston, you and me… Let’s go get a shovel, and this stays with us… Later on we’ll sit down and talk to the others if it looks like we have to. It doesn’t look like we have to right now,” He nodded, raised his eyes from the ground and then started through the trees to get a shovel.

Into the city Once More

Donita

They had run until they had come to the opposite end of the small woods, and Donita had stopped. The sun was up, sapping their strength, burning their eyes. It was not so much to her. She had grown used to it, but not so for the others, and it was not so far behind her that she did not remember the pain, the fear. It could not cause her to fall down and lapse into twilight. The heat from the sun was not pleasant, but it could not kill her, and she knew now for sure that it could not. Better that these behind her learned that too. Best that they were not afraid, not ruled by it.

She stared out across the field and then raised her eyes beyond it. The buildings of Manhattan rose before her. Miles away yet, but they called to her, and not her alone. She set off across the field at a lope. The man fell in behind her, the twin at her side, the thousands pouring from the deep woods, following like a shadow across the open ground.

September 2^nd

Bear and Billy

The cars and trucks in the field were pulling out when Bear dropped his truck down off the road and into the far end of the field. He very nearly shut off the motor before Cammy’s hand fell on his own and stopped him.

“You trust too easy, Bear,” she told him.

He sighed and then nodded. Maybe he did, he told himself. But could you live on the edge all the time? Never able to let your guard down? He laughed. The truth was, now that he forced himself to think about it, that he had always lived that way. He rarely ever let his guard down. This was just a case of tired, or stupid, or both mixed together.

“What could you possibly find funny about that, Bear,” Cammy asked him. She was so serious all the time. A perpetual worrier.

“I’m sorry… It wasn’t about that.” He debated telling her what it had been about, but the look on her face stopped him. “You’re right, Cammy. You’re right, and when you’re right, you’re right.” He looked down the field at the trucks and cars.

There was a slow curve that lead up to the field. He had not known they were here, and they had not heard him coming because the trucks and cars were all running, drowning out the sound of his own motor. They had looked as surprised to see him as he had been to see them.

Bear and Cammy sat looking out at the shocked faces in the trucks and cars at the other end of the field.

Several cars and trucks pulled out anyway, driving past where they sat, eyes sliding over them before they disappeared around the bend.

There were three trucks left in the field when Bear stepped out and walked alone down the field to one of the trucks and the small crowd that stood waiting for him. He held his shotgun in one hand, pointing at the ground; there if he needed it. He stopped in front of the people gathered around the trucks.

“I have never seen a man as big as you that walked that easy,” a young dark haired girl leaning against the hood of one of the trucks told him. The young guy at the front of the hood turned and looked at her.

“Easy, Iris,” he told her. He turned back to Bear. “Mac,” he said. He nodded at the young woman that had spoken. “Iris.” He turned and pointed at each of the people standing there in turn.

“Beth, Billy, Winston, Jamie and Dell… There are a couple of kids sleeping in the back of the Suburban… You’re pulling in?”

Bear shrugged. “Bear,” he said. “We’re heading out… The lady in the truck is Cammy.” He raised one hand, turned and waved it at Cammy. A few seconds later the truck dropped into drive and Cammy drove down the field. She stopped the truck, opened the door and stepped out.

Beth made the introductions once more. Mac walked to the back of the truck with Jamie and Billy moved up to talk to Bear and Cammy.

“We were about to light out. You don’t want to stay here. As impossible as it may seem, we’ve got dead around here.” He turned and nodded at the woods across the field. “Right over there a few nights back, while we were right here. We had posts set up too,” he shrugged. “Gone when we realized it the next morning, but they were there okay.”

“The others left anyway?” Cammy asked him.

“They’re not with us,” Billy answered. “We all met here. They’re going west, tried hard to talk them out of it, we’re heading south. Beth, me, Jamie, Winston and Dell came out of LA together. Met Mac and Iris, they’re with Jamie, they got two kids… Parents gone, crossed over from Jersey a few days back. Don Westfall and Ginny,” He pointed back at the third truck and a couple who stood talking to another couple. “Don is the tall guy with the bright red hair, Ginny’s the woman next to him with the black hair. The two traveling with them are Danny Best, Rose Evans.” He turned back to Bear. He had been looking back at the others as he spoke. “You and your lady heading south?”

Bear looked over at Cammy.

“We were thinking of going across through Pennsylvania, over that way… We keep hearing, Bear keeps hearing, about the middle of the states being dead free,” Cammy said. She didn’t correct the misconception Billy had that she and Bear were together. In truth it really wasn’t clear in her mind whether they were or not. They had both lost people they loved. It was probably too soon for both of them. Maybe it always would be, she thought now, as her eyes met Bear’s and she saw the pain still riding there.

“Heard some talk, but I don’t believe it… The city was so bad,” Billy said.

Bear nodded. “The radio… A few weeks back… They were talking about a city that was still safe… Still held by people,” he shrugged again. “It’s south anyway, maybe Alabama, just over and then down. I figured what the hell,” Bear finished.

Billy nodded. “I can’t speak for everyone. We threw in together. It wasn’t a vote kind of thing.”

Beth shrugged. “We can go your way… I can go your way.” Her eyes met his. They were deep brown. Liquid. Intense.

Billy scrubbed at the growth of beard that covered his jaw. “I’m good with it.”

“So what is this place you heard of?” Iris asked.

“Somewhere south… It was back when this whole thing started. I rigged up a C.B. Just heard talk of a place in Alabama… People were gathering together. I think Alabama, maybe it isn’t, but it was south… Not on the coast… Really it was just a snatch of conversation. I got nothing better than that, but it sounded real. And I heard it more than once.” Bear scrubbed at his own beard.

“We were there,” Beth spoke. “About halfway through what was Alabama, the land just slips into the water.”

“So we heard,” Bear agreed. “It was you then?”

“Us,” Billy agreed.

“So it’s dead then,” Bear frowned.

“They said there was land… Far out on the water,” Cammy said.

Bear nodded.

“Maybe,” Billy said. “Maybe it was land… Maybe it wasn’t.”

“I think it was,” Beth added. “It was afterwards. Thinking about it that I realized there was a shadow on the water, and we had heard talk to. Talked to people who said there was something there… Now we hear about The Nation more than anything else, and it makes me wonder if someone just put the two places together… Created their own myth.”

Bear nodded. “Heard that, Nation. Thought it was the same place.”

Billy shrugged. “I think Tennessee. Somewhere there. But what we hear is always second hand, passed on from someone who heard it from someone. Even so, there are a lot of people who have heard of it, even the name, for it not to be true.”

Bear frowned and rubbed at his temples. “Okay… Well, I’m heading for it, or the island if it’s there… And, well… Fuck it, I got to come out with it, because I don’t want a mistake about it later… I don’t follow. I’m just not built that way. I didn’t do it in the old world and I won’t do it now, as long as that’s clear… You’re coming with me… I’m not coming with you.”

“Harsh,” Mac said.

“Maybe,” Bear agreed. “Can’t have a shit load of chiefs and no Indians. I don’t mean I have the only say, I mean that I don’t… Hell, I don’t know a better way to say it. I can’t sugar coat it. I don’t follow. It doesn’t mean I don’t listen though, I do. It’s that simple. I guess that means what it means.” He threw up his hands.

“I don’t need a leader,” Beth said. “I lead me, as long as that’s straight.”

“Do you,” Bear said.

“Wow… Can you feel the love,” Billy said. Jamie cut her eyes over at him where she stood. She rolled her eyes once she caught his, and then turned and looked up at Mac adoringly. Billy turned away from her, his eyes looking for Beth, but Beth had eyes only for the big man, Bear. Billy sighed, looked down at the ground, and then back up as the conversation picked up once more. He ignored Jamie. He deserved her anger after all.

Cammy laughed, put a hand to her mouth, and then took it away and laughed harder. A second later all of them were laughing.

“Hey,” Billy said after a moment. “The two of you lead. Sounds workable to me. I don’t have even a slight wish to lead… Not at all.”

“Peace,” Mac said. “Along for the ride. As long as it’s stable, you know?”

Beth eyed Bear. “You and me then?”

Bear nodded. “I can roll with that… First thing though, we need better weapons: If this thing is south… We don’t know how far, and it could be dead by now. No saying it ever even got off the ground. So we don’t know how far we’re going. We need good guns… How bad did you see it in LA?”

“Oh Christ,” Billy started.

~

The morning turned to early afternoon before the four trucks pulled up out of the field together, followed the service roadway back onto route 3 and headed toward Clifton. Cammy studied a map as Bear drove.

“It’s hard to believe this is as far as we have got in over a month together,” she said as she studied the map.

“We had no real direction,” Bear supplied. “It’s not like we had decided on a place and headed toward it.” Bear watched the sides of the road. They were traveling along at less than twenty miles an hour, weaving down into the median, and off onto the service roads that paralleled the highway when they had too.

There were too many cars abandoned next to the road, in the road, even across the road, to be able to keep track of all of them at one time. A large mall came up on the right and Bear slowed at the interchange to look it over. Billy’s truck rolled up, the window dropped and Beth leaned out.

“Looks okay,” she said, breaking the silence of the quiet afternoon.

“Except it’s quiet,” Bear agreed. “That’s always been bad news.”

Beth held up her machine pistol. “We need what we need.”

Bear nodded. “Let’s go then… We stay together though.”

Beth nodded, Billy shifted back into drive and waited for Bear to pull away. He pulled in behind him and followed.

There was a thick line of trees behind the shops that Bear didn’t like. It seemed like the perfect place for the dead to hide away. He drove slowly into the first Mall area, past the trees and into the second lot. The trees were not as thick up close, but he could still not see through them, and it bothered him. Anything, or one, could be hidden within them. He turned the truck and pointed it back toward the entrance road and shut it down.

Billy, and then Mac, pulled down, turned around, and stopped next to Bear’s truck. They shut down too and the ticking of cooling motors filled the silence of the parking lot. Bear looked around the lot, but saw nothing that seemed out of place.

Abandoned cars and trucks. The front doors to a discount store were shattered, the aluminum frames twisted, pushed open wide and pinned against the faux brick front with carts. Bear had left the windows up. He didn’t like the idea of having to start the truck to roll them back up. It was better to roll them up before he shut down. He levered the door open, and stepped down to the pavement. Beside him, Billy, Beth, and Mac stepped out of their own vehicles too. The doors chuffed closed, and the silence came back heavy.

Bear scanned the parking lot but saw nothing. He looked over at Beth. She shrugged and looked back over at the wood line Bear turned away and started toward the shattered front entrance, the others fell in behind him.

The front of the store was destroyed. They stayed together, walking aisle to aisle looking for the dead.

The smell had hit all of them when they crossed the threshold into the store. The dead were there: Where they did not know. They walked slowly forward into the huge building. Silent. Safeties off their rifles, waiting.

At one end cap Bear snatched a stack of flashlights and passed them around. A few seconds later they had stripped off the packaging, installed the batteries, and with a roll of duct tape, strapped the lights to their rifle barrels in the on position. Bright pools of light followed them as they made their way further into the store.

Bear stopped at the back of the store. A set of heavy steel doors lead into the back storage area. There was nothing in the store itself, but he didn’t doubt that there had been. He eased his pouch from his jacket pocket, snagged a paper, shook the tobacco out and rolled a cigarette with one hand. He popped the cigarette into his mouth and then looked around near the back area. A pile of wooden pallets was stacked against the concrete block wall.

“Give me a hand,” Bear said. All three of them joined in and the stack of pallets came down and was re-stacked in front of the double steel doors in just a few minutes.

“Lighter fluid… Paint thinner… Something flammable,” Bear said. Beth looked around, crossed to the steel shelving that ran along the back of the wall.

“Starting fluid?” She asked.

Bear nodded. He took the starting fluid and sprayed down the top pallet. He pushed it over and it hit the door with a loud clatter, taking several other pallets with it, pushed the door open and then the stack spilled through into the interior. Bear heard a skittering, scuffling noise from inside the inky blackness. He continued to spray down the now toppled stack of pallets until the can emptied. It tended to dry fast, so he had let it build up and soak into the wood in a few places.

He pulled a kitchen match from his pocket, popped it to life with his thumbnail, lit the cigarette, and then tossed the match at the pile of pallets.

The flare of flame lit up the faces of a half dozen of the Dead where they stood just beyond the circle of light cast by the open door. As the flames leapt they began to scramble back into the darkness, but the four opened up on them before they could get away into the shadows.

Two ran at the flames in their fear and were cut down as they did. The others ran further into the shadows, but most dropped dead just beyond the fire as the bullets found them. Bear and Beth stepped past the flames, into the darkness of the storage area and chased them down. There were a half dozen more, and in their fright they simply cowered from the smoke and light, and were easy to deal with. These were not the smart ones that they had, had to deal with in the city.

Bear came up on the last one as it cowered, looking up at him, from a space next to several pallets of boxes. It had tried to work it’s way behind them, but had failed. Whatever the boxes held, the pallets were too heavy for it to move. It turned back, a young girl, no more than a child, the pleading in her eyes, and Bear hesitated for a split second. Beth stepped around him and shot her in the head as she started to spring from her crouch and launch herself at them. The bullet threw her back against the pallets. She landed with a solid crunch of bone, and slid down to the floor. The silence came back, and in it Bear met Beth’s eyes. He turned without speaking and crossed to the double rear doors, hit the bar that opened them, and threw them open to the bright afternoon light.

The light flooded into the storage area. After the darkness, lit only by the flashlights, they had to blink to get their sight back. Beth pushed a stack of boxes over to prop one side of the door open, Bear matched it with a heavy steel push cart to block the other side open. The light and air swept into the back area.

Beyond the doors, empty concrete loading docks ran the length of the rear of the building. Bear stepped out cautiously and looked around. Nothing as far as he could see. Beth stepped out behind him and looked to. A few seconds later they were making their way back into the main store area.

~

“It’s a bad place to try to defend,” Beth said.

They were in the parking lot of a huge chain store, a few miles down the road from where they had started. It was late in the day, the light beginning to fade from the sky. It was the only real way to tell time any longer, watch the sky. There were just too many variations in the length of the days. It did seem as though the days were becoming more uniform as they passed though. The last several somewhere close to twenty-eight hours.

The trucks were loaded down with camping gear, ammunition, and other necessities they had picked up. They had also picked up another truck for Beth and Dell to drive.

The stores on both sides of route 3 had been ransacked, but they had still found more than enough ammunition, guns and camping gear as they had worked their way from store to store. Cammy had taken Bear’s arm and lead him away from a display of canned beans in one of the stores they had gone through. “No,” she had said. Now they were deciding whether to move on or stay.

Mac looked over the map. “There’s a golf course, right?” He handed the map to Beth. Beth looked it over and nodded.

 “Okay, so it’s huge… A few miles ahead,” he looked up from the map.

“My problem with that is trees, areas where they can hide… I’d almost rather be in the middle of the highway… Or a cleared field… Something like that,” Bear said.

Beth nodded. “It has got to be overgrown… The golf course… Be great, perfect, if it wasn’t, but it’s been several months and that grass has got to be higher than we stand… I say no. I can’t see a way we could be safe.”

“There’s an overpass ahead,” Don offered.

“I saw that, but it looks like a pedestrian overpass. That’s not gonna work,” Bear said. “They could use it to drop right down on us if we stayed under it, and we’d have to be on foot if we stayed up top.”

Beth traced a finger across the map. “Look. We need to get to 81… We decided that… 3 to 46… 46 to 80. 80 to 81…” She sighed and looked up. “A lot of it is gone though. No signs, huge areas missing.”

Bear laughed. “Yeah, and no way to tell what is what.”

Beth nodded. “I think the map is pretty close to worthless.”

Bear nodded this time. “It’s just that there has been so much destruction. It might get better as we go,” He shrugged his shoulders, “It might get worse. But it’s not too bad. I say keep the map. It may help on occasion… It’s not bad to know where we might be. But we have to acknowledge that everything is torn up and there is no way to know if a particular route will be where it should be.” He looked at the map himself and then straightened up. “Okay. Sun sets in the Northeast now. A compass can not tell us that. Or if it can I don’t know how to do it. All I know is that the few times I have tried to use the compass it points at different areas. Needle won’t stay still. So,” he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small key chain compass.

The key chain itself held several keys. Bear looked at the keys for a second as though he had never seen them. “Well, anyway,” he said. “It’s no good.” He drew back and rocketed the keys, compass and all up into the sky. “Should have gotten that gone a long time ago… So… No good. But the sun rises in the Southwest, a little more to the south than the west. That gives us something to follow: If we stay to the right of the sun by a few degrees we’ll be okay. Even if we followed the sun itself, we’d be okay. That will bring us to 81 eventually. Of course, I’m not sure 81 will do us much good once, or if, we find it.”

“How so?” Mac asked.

“Because, Honey,” Iris said. “Remember?”

“If I remembered, I wouldn’t have asked,” Mac said. “Hey… I mean that in a not-being-an-asshole way,” he added.

“Sounded like it,” Iris said dryly. Jamie laughed lightly and threaded her fingers into Iris’s own. “Well, there was a run toward the south. I remember seeing the interstate and the thruway clogged. People tried to leave the north. So I would bet that everything going to the south is packed solid.”

Bear nodded. “Saw that,” he agreed.

“Bad wrecks on the thruway,” Winston added. “I remember seeing huge wrecks on the news before the news feeds stopped.”

“So, a few degrees to the right of the sun as it travels… Or follow routes where we can… We have about fifty to sixty miles to get into Pennsylvania… I’m thinking about staying away from the cities… I’m thinking what could they, the dead, want in the middle of nowhere? It seems we could be safe there.”

“Probably,” Beth agreed. “But there’s no way we’ll make it today.” She looked out of the parking lot at route 3, which was hopelessly clogged, and had only been getting worse as they drove it. She turned and looked back at the store behind them.

“Listen… This will sound crazy, but if we drove right into the store, built a fire right outside the doors… A big one… Burn all night, how could they get us?” Beth asked.

“Leave early… Get on the road… We might be able to make Pennsylvania tomorrow,” Mac agreed.

“Not bad,” Billy agreed.

“We’ll need a lot of wood to burn,” Bear threw in.

“More of those pallets. Every store has those out back,” Iris added. “Dead wood from the tree parks around here.”

“Parking lot full of tires… Tires burn,” Winston added.

“Let’s get to it then,” Bear agreed.

An hour later, as the sky began to darken, they had a stack of pallets and tires piled up in front of the doors to the store. The five trucks were inside. The back doors to the loading docks were shut once more.

Several more piles of pallets were set up about ten feet apart in a half circle that closed in the front of the parking lot. Tires had been piled on top of the pallets: Spares from cars and trucks in the parking lot. They had not tried to get them off the rims, just punched holes in them so they would not explode as they burned.

Kerosene lanterns burned inside the store, casting light. Beth finished pouring a can of kerosene she had liberated from an aisle in the store over the piles, and bear stepped forward and flicked a match at the first pile. It went up with a whoosh. He and Mac held sticks in the flames and then set the other piles ablaze one by one. Bear finished by lighting one of his cigarettes from the stick, and then tossed the stick into one of the piles to burn. He walked back to the building, sat down on a pile of pallets, leaned his back against the building, and smoked as evening came down.

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