All That I See - 02 (12 page)

“He shouldn’t be doing that,” I said. “He’ll just attract more with the noise.”

“No big deal,” Ron said
with a shrug
. “They can’
t get through the fence.”

“Yeah, but they could surround this place and keep you from getting out for a while.”

“We have plenty of food,” he said.

I didn’t
like
his cavalier attitude. I was surprised that he had made it so long not understanding the
gravity
of our situation.

“Well, we don’t,” I said. “We should probably go before more of them show up.”

“You two are more than welcome to stay,” he said. “We’re all cool with it.”

“I appreciate that,” I replied, “and we’ll be back, but we have some things we need to collect.”

Ben Parks was on his way back up the driveway, “Ron, get your gloves!” he called out. “We need to drag them away from the property!”

“We should go,” I said, looking at Sara. She nodded and walked out to meet Parks. The
y
stood in the driveway and talked a couple of minutes while I waited by the car. Ben kept glancing up at me. Finally, she hugged him and joined me.

“I told him we’d be back,” she said as we got in the car.

I pulled around and started down the driveway. When I got to Parks, I stopped. He leaned over and looked in my window.

“Take care of her,” he said.

“We’ll take care of each other,” Sara said.

He nodded, “We’ll keep an eye out for you. You come back when you can.”

I eased past him down to the gate. Sara got out and opened the gate for me to pull out then closed it once I was clear. I kept looking in the mirror. Ben Parks hadn’t moved. He was just standing there
in the middle of the driveway
staring out at us. Ron came out of the house and handed him a pair of leather work gloves, but Ben never took his eyes off of us.

“That man does not like me,” I said to myself.

“What did you say?” Sara said as she got in the car.

“Nothing.”

Chapter 13

“
So,
Mr. Parks, huh?
”
I said as Sara drove us back toward Clayfield.

She nodded.

“Shop?”

“Yeah, why?”

I shrugged, “I don’t know. I have fond memories of a couple of teachers. There was Mrs. Brown, my high school history teacher. There was Mr. Wallace, my museum studies professor
in college
.
Ben Parks
just seems like an odd choice for favorite teacher, that’s all.”

“Mr. Parks is a really nice man,” she said, sounding defensive.

“I’m sure he is,” I said. “But shop? I didn’t really take you to be a shop kind of girl.”

“What
kind of girl
did you take me for?” she said, this time obviously in a defensive
, perhaps angry,
tone.

“I don’t know,” I shrugged. “
Who chooses their shop teacher as their favorite?”

“I do,” she said. “Most of Clayfield High School does…or did. What do you have against Mr. Parks?”

“Nothing.”

We were quiet for a while. I looked out my window as we passed deserted houses and the shambling undead.

“Why would he be your favorite teacher?” I said, still not satisfied.

“Really?” she said. “Why was Mrs. Brown your favorite?”

“Well,” I said, thinking it over, “she inspired me. She got me excited about history. It was because of her, that I chose my profession. Plus she was a really nice lady.”

“Yeah, and Mr. Parks is a really nice man.”

“I know,”
I said.
“
B
ut
,
is that all? Did he really go above and beyond? That’s the thing about the good ones—“

“Mr. Parks was voted teacher of the year by the students during my junior and senior year
s
,” she said. “That should tell you something.”

“It should,” I said. “But it doesn’t.”

“Never mind,”
she said, rolling her eyes.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”

I let it go, but I didn’t think the question was an unreasonable one.

“Are we going somewhere in particular?” I asked, noticing that we
were now headed north
on the bypass
away from town.

“I thought we’d cross the county line, and find a liquor store,” she said. “I thought we would have a better selection in a store. I’d rather not drink any
more nasty rum.”

“Not all rum is nasty,” I said. “Wheeler and his group were going
this
way, remember?
Maybe we should cross the line to the south and head over to Fullerton.
”

“I’m counting on Wheeler still being in Clayfield,” she said. “Fullerton is a long drive.”

Clayfield
is
dead center in Grace County, so it was going to be a
thirty to forty-five
minute drive no matter which direction we went
, and that was on a good day when we didn’t have to dodge wrecked cars and zombies
.
I didn’
t like the idea of leaving the area
. I could have argued that it was unnecessary--we were bound to find alcohol somewhere in Clayfield—but we hadn’t been out of the county since the virus, and I was kind of curio
us about how other places had fa
r
ed. There weren’t really any towns immediately north of the county line—just liquor stores and bars built for the sole purpose of servicing the dry citizens of Grace County and Clayfield whose
cash turned into tax revenue and
helped to pave roads in a different county because they could purchase a particular item just a
few feet over an imaginary line that they couldn’t purchase on the other side. It was silly, really.

The four-lane high
way leading out of Grace County was cluttered with abandoned and wrecked
vehicles. Car doors stood open. There were a couple of pile-ups. Here and there were the undead. They were always around. Their deterioration was evident. They were wasting away either from starvation or because that was what dead bodies did—waste
away. Seeing an infected individual in the first stage of the virus wasn’t as common as it had been. They were still around, but like us, the
truly
living, they were a minority.

Another thing we’d noticed more of were the scavengers—vultures, ravens, coyotes, and dogs. These c
reatures weren’t wasting away; t
hey were fat and happy. As we passe
d, they would pull their heads out of the carrion
(some of it still moving)
and grin at
us with black, dripping mouths. I’d read once that a
possible
factor in the evolution of a sentient species was a full belly. When
a creature was
n’t spending every
waking
hour thinking about finding
its
next meal,
it
had time to think on other things, like say, th
e meaning of life or something. I thought it was a ridiculous theory and full of holes, but I had been thinking about what would happen when all of the humans were gone; would another species on Earth evolve and take our place?

Then there were the flies. The
y
had started buzzing around, too. It had not gotten quite warm enough yet for the insects to be out in full force, but soon….

Sara pulled the Crown Victoria onto a side road, then into the parking lot of a little gas station/grocery store. There was only one other car parked in front of the store and a pickup truck at
a gas pump.

“I like the looks of this,” Sara said. “If no one has been in here, we could get most of what we need.”

“That truck at the pump looks good, too,” I said.

We pulled our masks up, got out and stood next to the car, listening and looking. This had become a habit for us when we were both leaving a vehicle. Sometimes a large group of the things would be hidden from view behind a building, and we found it was always best to stay near the car for a few seconds and listen for any activity.

We didn’t hear anything except birds, and even they seemed subdued. I was the first to move away from the car. I went over to the pumps and looked into the pickup truck, a late model Toyota Tundra. I cupped my hands around my eyes so I could see.

“The keys are in it,” I said. “It looks like they filled her up, too. When we leave, I’ll drive it, and we’ll leave the Crown Victoria some place in Clayfield.”

I turned and looked at Sara. She was standing by the car with the rifle on her shoulder, pointed at the sky. She nodded to let me know she heard me, squinting in the morning sun.

“Better make sure it starts before we load anything into it,” she said.

I climbed in. It cranked right up. The radio was on, and static blasted out of the speakers. I turned off the radio, put the truck in reverse and backed it up toward the front doors of the building.

“Are you ready to go shopping?” I smiled as I climbed out of the truck.

“Is the twenty-two loaded?”

“Ready to go,” I said. “How about you?”

“I’ve got eight bullets left,” she said. “I counted them this morning.”

“We should come across more guns today,” I assured her.

The doors to the store were unlocked. We went inside.

“Wow,” Sara said. “It looks untouched. It sure smells bad, though.”

“Probably all the bad meat,” I said, nodding toward a sandwich bar.

She squatted down in front of the counter where they displayed the impulse items and tore open a Hershey’s Special Dark.

“Want one?” she said, offering me a candy bar.

I stepped forward to take it from her then noticed a lot of boxes in the floor behind the counter. They were cigarette cartons. They had been walked on. There was a puddle back there, too. There was a doorway in the far wall that was open to a dark room.

“Someone has been in here,” I said. “I see—“

Then there was a noise from the room—slow, dragging footsteps. Sara had been stuffing candy bars into her pocket, and she looked up at me. She’d heard it, too. She stood slowly.

“Hello?” she said loudly, her mouth full of chocolate.

The thing wasn’t much more than a walking
skeleton. Skin hung loose on it
s bones, and its ragged clothes looked oily and wet. I think it had been a man once.

“Do you think it can get to us?” Sara said.

“I would thi
nk that after all this time, if
he could have gotten out he would,” I replied.

“In that case, let’s don’t worry about it,” she said. She pulled some small LED flashlights from the impulse rack. “Let’s take all this stuff.”

We opened a couple of boxes of trash bags and used them to hold what we collected. We would fill a bag then put it by the door to carry out when
we
were done. On each trip back to the front, we would take a look outside and check on the clerk behind the counter. He paced around in his little space, but never did find a way over to us.

We were able to get plenty of beverages, but the food selection was limited to mostly junk like candy, cakes, chips, and crackers—snacks people ate while on the road. They did have a few cans of soup and chili and two small boxes of cereal.

We were able to restock our toiletries somewhat, too. When Sara wasn’t looking, I grabbed all the condoms. I guess it wouldn’t have mattered if she saw me do it, but I just didn’t want to talk about it right then.

Sara was in the back emptying the jerky rack when I noticed movement outside. I went up to the glass door and looked out. There were three shuffling into the parking lot from the west, and there was another by the gas pumps.

“Time to go!” I yelled.

Sara ran to me carrying a partially full bag and her rifle.

“Do you think it’s because of me?” she asked. “We haven’t been that loud.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe they heard the car when we pulled in, and they’re just now getting here.”

She looked down, “How many bags did we get?”

“Six,” I
said. “We’ll carry out two each
then you get the truck started while I c
ome back in for the other two.”

She nodded, slung her rifle onto her shoulder and grabbed two of the bags.

“I’m ready,” she said.

“Don’t use your rifle unless you have to,” I said, picking up two bags. “Save the bullets.”

We opened the doors, and went out into the sunshine. The nearest creature saw us and stepped up its pace. It was in a state of decay, but not as bad as the clerk. One of the creatures by the road howled. Behind us, the clerk howled as if in reply.