All That I See - 02 (31 page)

Her back was bloody from several small holes. They didn’t look like gunshots but more like stab wounds. I grabbed her arm and rolled her over. She was already cold. Her eyes were closed. There were scrapes on her nose, left breast and knees, but no stab wounds in the front. Her feet were bloody, too, from running barefoot on the pavement.

The only thing I could figure was that the doctor had done this. I got a chill and quickly looked around me for any sign of him. Farther down the road I saw a figure. It wasn’t Dr. Barr, but an infected child. I needed to get back to the building. Chances were other zombies were around. The
n I noticed blood out ahead of
Ellen
’s body. I didn’t think it was hers, because she hadn’t made it that far. There was another spot of blood a few feet farther. Then I came to the bloody steak knife. I followed the trail, all the while keeping my eye on the kid.

The trail of blood took me off the road, down a hill, and to a fence
row. When I saw it I stopped. Ahead of me, Travis Barr was seated, leaning against the fence. He was also naked. His legs were spread, and his crotch was a bloody mess. There was an infected woman on the other side of the fence. She had pulled his arm back through to her side and was eating on it. Two more infected people were reaching through the fence trying to get to him, too. I was about to leave when he moved.

“Help me,” he said feebly. “She…she cut me. Get my bag, and I’ll tell you what to do.”

“I think it’s too late,” I said. “You’re arm.”

Slowly, he turned his head to look at his arm. There was a section of it where the bare bone was exposed. The woman didn’t look up from her meal. With his other arm, he tried to swat her away. I didn’t understand why he couldn’t feel her eating him.

“Get my bag,” he said, as if drugged. “I’ll get rid of her.”

I looked back to the road. A man had joined the child.

“I’m sorry, Travis,” I said. “I wish things had been different.”

He was still trying
to
slap away the woman when I shot him. I didn’t stick around. I turned and sprinted back to the facility before the creatures could get a fix on the noise of the gun.

When I made it back to the building, I went into the apartment
Ellen
and the doctor had been using. I needed to collect their supplies—particularly the guns and medicine—while I still could. I expected the infected to be drawn to the area, but I didn’t know if they would zero in on us.

I found the shotgun and Bern’s pistol next to a pile of
Ellen
’s clothes in the bedroom. There was blood on the bed sheets. That must have been where she cut him. I didn’t know what had happened after that or why they were outside in the road, but I guessed that he’d taken the knife and chased her out there.

I divided
food, water, booze, clothing and medical supplies between their two bags. I made sure to get the copy of
Yertle the Turtle
, too. I wanted to give that to Sara. I stowed one bag and the shotgun in the truck, then took the other items into my own apartment.

Somerville was still sleeping. His I.V. bag was empty, so I pulled the needle out of his hand. That woke him up.

“What’s happening?”

“Do you think you can sit up?” I asked.

“I can if you help me. Why?”

“We need to leave soon,” I said. “The others are dead.”

“You mean the doctor?”

“Yeah,” I said. “We don’t have to leave this very second, but soon. Do you think you could eat?”

“I don’t have an appetite,” he said. “What happened to the doctor?”

“He went out too far on foot and the zombies got him,” I said, not wanting to tell the whole story. “
Ellen
was with him.”

He grunted and shifted in the bed, “He’s got me on some medicine. I don’t know—“

“I’ll figure it out,” I said. “I’m going to see if I can find some soup. You need to eat.”

He grunted again.

There was no soup in the food supply--at least none of that prepackaged or canned stuff--but there was a small can of sliced carrots. I
took the fork back outside to di
g some more wild garlic. While I was out there, I looked down the road.
Ellen
’s body was gone. I watched a man cross the road on his way to the spot where I’d found Dr. Barr.

I dug the garlic quickly and took it back inside. I cleaned it, chopped it up with the chives and put it in a small saucepan with some water, salt, and the carrots. Then I put three short candles in the sink, lit them and propped the pan over them to cook. Within a few minutes, the water was steaming. I poured some of it into a coffee cup and took it in to Somerville.

He was still weak, but with the two of us working together, we got him sitting up enough to take the mug. He took a sip and made a face.

“Drink as much as you can, and if you’re able, eat the vegetables,” I said.

“Yeah, I’ve had soup be
fore,” he said grumpily. “
I think I can manage.”

“Okay,” I grinned. “Since you can manage, I’m going to go in the kitchen and eat.”

I poured myself a mug of soup and opened a package of crackers. The soup wasn’t very good, but I’d had worse. I had some of
Ellen
’s port wine, too. It was pretty good; I could see why she had been so selfish about it. When I finished my meal and had a buzz going (it couldn’t have been later than 8 a.m.), I packed up everything we would need and took the bag out to the truck. It was clear out there at that time.

On my way back, I was startled to see Bern standing in the window of the apartment next door watching me. The gunshot must not have done the necessary damage. She had an expression on her face like she was trying to do math in her head. Then she leaned in and licked the window. I suddenly had a memory of her from the night before sitting next to me licking her lips, her hand on my crotch…
Do you like that?
I felt queasy.

“Mr. Somerville,” I said, returning to our apartment, “do you feel well enough to travel now?”

“No,” he said, “but I’ll do it anyway.”

I entered the bedroom, and he was still holding the mug.

“Do we need to go now?” he said.

“We don’t need to, but I want to,” I said. “I want to find Sara. Did you drink the soup?”

He turned the mug upside down to show me it was empty.

“Good,” I said. “Let me get the wheelchair, and we’ll be on our way.”

Chapter 37

The most difficult part for both of us was getting him up into the truck. He was so exhausted after the ordeal that he fell asleep before I had even started the engine.

I drove back toward Clayfield. I passed the dead dogs and drove under the overpass. There was still a crowd there leftover from the night before, but it had diminished. When I got into the city limits, I went to the alley between the glass shop and Plucky’s Diner. The supplies Sara and I had collected days before were still inside.

I backed the truck up to the rear of the van and climbed in. There were zombies around, and they were curious, but they hadn’t decided whether or not they wanted me. Quickly, I transferred as much as I could from one vehicle to the other. The creatures began to shuffle in. I didn’t have time to get it all—most of the alcohol was left—but I could come back for the rest later. I shut the van doors and got back into the truck before the things got too close. Somerville slept through it all.

As I drove out to
the
Lassiter’s Stables, I felt fluttery inside. I didn’t know if it was giddiness over seeing Sara again or anxiety over
the possibility of
not finding her there. They both feel the same.

I pulled up in the driveway and was surprised to see the chickens scratching around out in one of the pastures. The moving van
and church van were
still there, but there were no other vehicles. I parked, got out, looked and listened. I didn’t notice any danger, so I shut the door, leaving Somerville in the truck.

Someone had been in the house recently. There was a bag of garbage in the kitchen that I hadn’t remembered being there before. The tomato and pepper seedlings were still in the window, and while the soil was dry, it hadn’t been that way for long. The tiny plants were still very much alive, albeit wilted.

There was a new addition to the windowsill, too. The sweet potatoes had been sliced in half and placed in a tray of dirt to encourage them to sprout. One of them already had
several
little purple eyes forming on it. I emptied my little water bottle on the plants and turned to go upstairs. That’s when I saw a note stuck to the wall.

It said: “
I hope you read this. I hope you are still alive. Nicholas is dead. Judy is with me, and we are with Mr. Parks. I will wait two days. I love you. –Sara
”

She
said she would wait two days, b
ut two days from when? And after she’d waited, what did she plan to do? I hurried out to the truck and backed out of the driveway. Mr. Somerville stirred.

“Are we there?”

“We’re going to another place,” I said. “Sara and Judy should be there. What I wouldn’t give for a working cellphone right now.”

.
I drove over to the house where Ben and Ron and the others were staying.
I parked at the gate and got out. There was a vehicle at the house, but not the SUVs I’d seen Parks and the others in before. They’d also said they had a boat, and I didn’t see that either. The gate was unlocked. I swung it open and pulled up to the house.

I went up to the front door
and knocked. When no one let me in, I let myself in.

“Hello? Sara? Ben?”

No one answered me, so I moved into the next room. It was a large kitchen. There was a long table in there, and on the table, a map of the region was spread. A route had been marked out with a red Sharpie. It started at my present location, traveled into Clayfield then north through Singletree and
Riverton
, across the Ohio River into Illinois, then west across the Mississippi River into Missouri. The route continued west to Springfield. Three big red arrows pointed to Springfield and next to them a handwritten address: 124 Harper Street.

The route didn’t make sense to me. Why would they travel north then west, forcing them to cross two large rivers? Why not just head west and cross the Mississippi River into Missouri and forget about that extra jaunt through Illinois?

Obviously, the map had been left for me to find. I grinned, imagining Sara trying to convince the others to leave it for me even though I was likely presumed dead. I needed to leave right away if I hoped to catch up with them. I didn’t want to travel with them--I still wanted to stay in Clayfield—but no matter where I ended up, I wanted to be with Sara.

I didn’t know what to do about Somerville. He didn’t feel up to traveling, but I didn’t want to leave him behind by himself. I took the map and went outside. After waking him, I explained the situation.

“I’m going,” he said. “If you leave, it might be days before you come back, if at all. I can’t sit around wondering what’s going on. Let’s find a vehicle where I can s
tretch out—a van or something.”

I drove back over to the stables and unloaded most of the supplies from the pickup, leaving the wheelchair and just enough supplies to fit in two duffle bags for travelling. I gave the seedlings and sweet potatoes a good soaking and turned them in the window. Then we headed into Clayfield to look for a suitable vehicle where Somerville could lie down.

It was frustrating, because even though there were plenty of vans around, it was difficult to find one with keys or gas or a charged battery. I couldn’t get it out of my head that every minute that passed could be another mile or more that Sara and Judy were travelling away from us. Mr. Somerville was awake the whole time, and even though he could see my impatience and hear my cursing each time I stopped, he did not let it bother him or even speak one word of apology for coming along.

I was about to try my luck at one of the car dealerships, when he spoke.

“That should do,” he said.

I looked out his window. We were about to pass a little Baptist church. In the parking lot was a small RV. I say it was small, but even a small RV is big compared to other vehicles. I pulled in anyway.

“It’s going to be like driving that moving van,” I said. “Hard to maneuver.”

“It ought to have a bed in it,” he said. “Might have supplies in it, too. Park by the door, and we won’t even have to mess with the wheelchair.”

I sighed, “Fine.”

“I know it is,” he said. “Stop being such a whiny ass.”

I didn’t try to get him right away. I went inside to check it out first. There was no one in there, but it did look lived in. How recently it had been lived in was difficult to say, but I figured no one had been in there since Canton B arrived in Clayfield. I found boxes of bookmarks printed with a picture of a young couple and two small children. Underneath their picture it said: Pray for the Wachowski Family—Missionaries to Alaska. At the bottom of the bookmark it said, “’How shall they believe unless they hear? And how shall they hear without a preacher?’—Romans 10:14”