We got the women off the truck and I was grateful to see that all of them had managed to get some sort of footwear. I had no illusions about being able to carry someone for six miles. The wind was dying down and the moon was finally cresting high in the sky, casting a pale light over the landscape. Cornstalks rustled in the wind, causing Tommy and I to finger our weapons and glance around. We needed to move.
I took point, walking in front of the women, while Tommy brought up the rear. We had the women walk in a single file line down the middle of the road, the reason being if something came out of the fields in the center of the line, there would be a few seconds to react and deal with it.
We walked for about an hour, passing by two farm houses. I didn’t bother to stop and look around or even consider them as a stopping point for the night. White flags fluttered in the night breeze from the lonely mailboxes by the side of the road, indicating these homes’ surrender to the disease.
It wasn’t until the fifth mile that we saw our first zombie. He was moving down the center of the road, ambling along as if he owned it. He was pretty tall for a zombie, roughly six foot three, with broad shoulders and long arms. At the sight of him, several of the women gasped, but to their credit, they didn’t scream. I limbered up my pickaxe and advanced on the ghoul who hissed as he saw me and moved quickly forward.
Damn. A fast one. His success as a zombie was evident by the copious amount of dried blood about his face and hands. His shirt was filthy with blood. As he reached out I ducked aside and swung my pickaxe as hard as I could. The chisel end connected solidly with the Z’s knee, cracking it and tumbling the large zombie to the ground. It tried to stand up, but its leg buckled and wouldn’t support it. A large hand reached out to grasp me as I got closer and I used a baseball swing to crush the skull of the ghoul at the temple. He went down with all the grace of a falling tree and I hooked his belt with the pickaxe. It was a trial trying to get this thing into the ditch, since he weighed over two fifty if he weighed an ounce.
The women cautiously moved forward. Maggie approached me as I wiped off my weapon.
“You’ve done that before, I guess?” she asked, looking down at the body.
“Yes.” I was getting tired and was not in the mood for conversation. Any further explanation would have been pointless and likely last until morning. We needed to move.
I figured we had two miles to go and the horizon was starting to look a little lighter. I started walking again and Maggie fell back in line, understanding the need to continue.
We walked for another half hour, passing field after field. It wasn’t until I began to see homes closer together that I realized we were nearing Coal City. Staying on the road, we passed the high school, and I could swear I saw a zombie wandering around the running track.
We stopped at a restaurant that had a beer garden and made our way inside. The garden had several tables and a wrought iron fence that enclosed it. Tommy did a quick check of the premises and declared it clear. Exhausted women collapsed on the tables and chairs, several of them lying out on the floor. I stretched out on a table and Tommy sat next to me.
“We going in?” Tommy wanted to know.
I closed my eyes. “Not ‘til morning. We don’t need to wake anybody just yet.”
Tommy just nodded, then nodded off. I spent a moment with a lighter, burning the virus out of the strap on my backpack.
I was nearly asleep when a felt a touch at my shoulder. My eyes popped open and I looked into the startled face of Maggie, who was looking down the barrel of my SIG.
“Sorry about that,” I said, putting the weapon back in its holster.
“I just wanted to say thank you,” Maggie said. “We figured our lives were over until you and Tommy came.”
“You’re welcome,” I said, closing my eyes.
In the morning, Tommy and I went over to the wall and shouted until someone noticed us. I climbed the ladder and spoke with one of Harlan’s deputies, conveying our needs and leaving him to alert the rest of the town. In short order, Tommy was leading the women to the main gate, with a lot of people gawking at what we had accomplished. Sarah gave me a fierce hug and when she saw the chewed-on strap of my backpack, she looked into my eyes and started to cry. I didn’t have anything to say, I just held her close.
After the women had been taken in, thanks to the arrangements made by Sarah and the women of Coal City, I gathered our band together. Charlie had arrived early in the morning, riding nice and easy in a comfortable truck on the railroad tracks. After hearing what Tommy and I had gone through, he muttered something about the luck of fools again and thumped me for nearly getting killed.
We were heading out today, going back to Leport. We had a long way to go and with the stars in proper alignment, we’d make it without incident. I told Sheriff Harlan about our plans and he wished us luck, thanking us for all we had done. He promised to stay in touch and we would be setting up some sort of regular communications soon. As it was, several towns were now in contact thanks to our work on the rails and with good fortune, we’d be able to get more going.
As we gathered our things for the trip north, I reflected on what this trip had cost us. We lost three people, but we gained several towns. I’d take that any day.
We drove out of Coal City to the waves and gratitude of the town. I felt good about what we had managed to do, but I knew we had other things to take care of first. One thing had been nagging me for a while, ever since Tom Harlan had mentioned his brother.
Where was my brother? The question would not leave me alone, and when we got back to Leport, I intended to do something about it.
After I spent a lot of time with Jake and Sarah.
21
We made it back to the boat and returned to Leport later in the day. Nate came down to the dock to greet us, bringing Jakey and Julia along as well as a large number of other people. There were a lot of questions, not the least of which was why we were three people short. After hugging Jake for a while, I explained to the people what had happened, what we had accomplished, and what had happened to our lost companions. There were head shakes all around, but no looks of blame. I downplayed what Charlie and I had done at Coal City and only briefly mentioned what Tommy and I had done. Everyone was excited about the prospect of new people and possibly being able to communicate and trade. We had realized on the trip up that the tracks that ran through Leport ran all the way down to Streator. We could set up a line of communication or we could get a train or something running.
While we were away, Duncan had been sending people back at a steady pace, with the list of incoming survivors reaching over two hundred. Tommy realized he was going to have to dig another trench, this one farther out as people moved into homes outside the safe zone. Everyone had to be quarantined for a bit to make sure no one was bringing the infection into the area, but no one complained.
One real piece of good news was the town had running water. Our plumbers and engineers had rigged up a pump system using a big water wheel and a whole lot of garden hose, not to mention the judicious use of gravity, and there it was. Not a ton of pressure, but it beat walking to the river with a bucket every day.
I spent the next few weeks just taking things easy, dealing with minor problems as they came up in the community, talking to newcomers, working out on the farms. I spent three interesting days with Nate as we scouted the local area, trying to find a suitable place for livestock. Eventually, we settled on a spot north of the farms. It had decent water, plenty of grazing and was surrounded on three sides by water. The only way any zombies would get at the livestock would be to come through a narrow gap and we had posted men to keep an eye on it. Charlie took off into the country side and came back later with a few cows, a horse, and several goats. It was a start and the animals actually seemed to be glad to have human company again.