Dead Highways (Book 2): Passage (17 page)

Ted wisely leapt to his feet and backed away from the truck, not wanting to get smashed in the head with the old man’s shovel.

“I’m sorry,” Ted said. “We didn’t think anyone was home.”

“And you didn’t think to knock either,” the man replied. He stopped in front of the gas tank, looked down at the red gas can and plastic tubing on the ground. “What’s goin’ on here … you trying to steal my gas? Think you can jus’ take things that don’t belong to ya?”

Robinson now stepped forward. “We’re really sorry, sir. You’re right, we should have knocked first.”

“Wait a darn minute, you’re with the police?” Robinson nodded. His uniform always gave him away. “If anyone should know better, should be you.”

Robinson continued nodding, looking ashamed. “Again. You’re right. Mind if we explain who we are and where we’re from?”

“Don’t much matter. You ain’t from round here, I can tell that.”

Peaches came out of the car holding Olivia, no doubt wondering who the strange man with the shovel was.

“We should just go,” Bowser whispered.

Robinson ignored him, took a deep breath. “How about we start over. My name’s Robbie Robinson. I
was
a police officer, before everything went down. These are my friends.” He went down the line and introduced the rest of us. “We’ve been driving all morning and we just needed some gas. I assure you we didn’t think anyone was home. If you know the scale of what’s happened, then I’d imagine you’d know why.”

The old man lowered the shovel and sighed.

“What’s your name?” Robinson asked.

“My name’s Sam, and yeah, I heard about it on the radio. Sounded unbelievable at first. That was until my wife got sick. I went into town to try and get her some help and … well, no one would help me. Everyone was too worried about themselves, those that hadn’t gone to sleep like her, that is. Can’t say I blame them either. After that I came back home and did a lot of hoping and praying.”

“Where is your wife now?” Ted asked.

“She’s in the house.”

“Is she infected?”

“I guess she was, if that’s what you wanna call it. Not anymore.” Sam bowed his head. “I checked her pulse when I went to bed last night and she was still alive. When I got up this morning…”

“What?” Robinson inquired. “She … passed on?”

Sam nodded. “I couldn’t find a pulse no more. I looked and looked, but I couldn’t find one. She must have died sometime during the night. I figure the cancer finally beat her.”

“She had cancer?”

“Yup, doctor said she had a tumor in her brain ‘bout the size of a golf ball … had shown us pictures of it. He had given her three months to live. Course that was almost a year ago now.”

“So you’re saying your wife never woke up from the coma?” I asked.

“No, never did. Why, have others woke up?”

“Yeah, most,” I replied.

“That’s good to hear.”

“No, not really. They wake from the coma but they’re not the same. They’re still sick.”

Sam grunted. “That’s too bad then. And I was thinking of going into town again.”

“I wouldn’t if you can help it,” Robinson said. “Not for a while anyway.”

Bowser tugged at Robinson’s sleeve from behind. “Let’s go,” he said again.

“He’s right,” Ted said. “We probably should get going. We can find some gas elsewhere.”

“Why? We’ve got gas here,” Aamod said.

Everyone turned and looked back at Aamod, but it was Sam who was the first to respond.

“What did you say?” he asked.

“I said we’ve got gas here,” Aamod said again. He used the shotgun to point at Sam’s truck. “Why should we not just take it?”

“Are you serious?” Robinson asked.

Naima began to interject, but Aamod cut her off with lightning fast precision. He had nineteen years of practice.

“We need gas,” Aamod went on. “He has it. Why shouldn’t we just take it?”

“Because it’s not right,” Robinson said.

“Doesn’t matter what’s right anymore. There is one of him and many of us. We have guns. He has a shovel. That is the way of the world now.”

“Is that so?” Sam said.

“It is.”

“Enough!” Robinson shouted. “We’re not gonna rob him. We’ll get the gas from somewhere else.”

Aamod scoffed and shook his head angrily.

“But we
are
gonna need our stuff back,” Ted said, pointing at the gas can and plastic tubing. “If you don’t mind.”

“Sure, so you can rob someone else.”

“We’ll make sure nobody is home next time,” Robinson said. “I promise.”

“Don’t make stealing right,” Sam said. “If nobody’s home.”

“It’s a lot worse out there than you realize,” I said. “Take that trip into town … you’ll see.”

“I suppose I will.”

Ted slowly walked up and retrieved the items next to the truck. Then we started for the cars, ready to get back on the road.

Sam was a nice man, but he’d never understand where we were coming from. He hadn’t seen what we’d seen. He was living outside of reality, unaware of the mass awakening of infected. As Aamod had so subtlety pointed out, the rules
had
changed. And while that didn’t mean it was okay for us to rob him, I don’t think I would have felt too bad if we had. Since, given his disconnect from the world’s current condition, Sam would surely be dead soon anyway.

But he wasn’t out of our lives just yet.

“Got some gas in the shed out back,” Sam said. “It’s yours if you could give me a hand with my wife. My back ain’t what it used to be since I got into my seventies.”

“What do you mean … give you a hand?” Robinson asked.

“Diggin’ the grave.”

“So
that’s
what the shovel is for,” I said.

Sam nodded. “For Edith. I still gotta bury her.”

“How much gas you got in the shed?” Ted asked.

“Few barrels full.”

We all exchanged glances, waiting for someone to express any objections. When no one did, Robinson nodded and said, “Okay. We’ll help you.”

“Fools,” I heard Aamod whisper under his breath.

But his objection was too late.

Sam led Ted and Robinson over to the shed to show them the drums of oil. Then he handed them both a shovel, and the three of them went to work digging a grave on the side of the house, under the shade of a few tall trees. Bowser stood nearby, jumping in to take over when Sam got tired. Aamod wanted no part in helping, so he stayed out front by the cars. With Sam’s permission, Naima went into the house to go number two.

Peaches and I strolled along the exterior of the property. She held Olivia while I walked Jax on a leash.

“Poor guy,” Peaches said. “He has no idea what’s going on.”

“Nope, and he’ll most likely find out the hard way.”

“I feel bad about his wife though.”

“Yeah, it’s weird that she didn’t wake up.”

“She had cancer.”

“I know. That’s probably why. Her body was too weak of a host. Still, makes you wonder.”

Peaches stopped walking. “Makes you wonder what?”

Jax didn’t want to stop. He wanted to keep exploring the property, take in every last scent. “If she’ll stay dead,” I replied.

“But she didn’t wake up. You just said she was probably too weak of a host.”

“That was then, when she was still alive. She obviously contracted the virus initially. Just because she died in the coma doesn’t mean the virus won’t still mutate.”

“How many hours has she been dead?”

We started walking again, making our way back closer to the house. “Sam said she died sometime during the night.” I checked my watch. “It’s almost one in the afternoon. So it’s been at least six hours. Maybe as many as twelve or thirteen. If she’s gonna come back, should be soon.”

“Where do they have her body anyway?” Peaches asked.

Right then we heard the porch door slam, and Naima came running out of the house, hands over her face, looking upset. Robinson stopped shoveling dirt and asked her what was wrong, but she ignored him and quickly headed for the front of the house.

“I’ll go see what’s up with her,” Peaches said, and hurried off.

Jax and I walked up on Robinson, Ted, and Bowser continuing to dig and earn us some gas. Sam was standing back overseeing the operation. A fairly large mound of dirt sat beside them, though the hole itself wasn’t more than a few feet deep.

“Looks shallow,” I said.

Robinson looked up at me. “No shit.”

“It’s not as easy as it looks,” Ted said, stopping to rest for a moment.

“I don’t know how far I would have gotten by myself,” Sam said. “I sure appreciate the help.”

“And we’ll sure appreciate the gas,” Bowser replied.

Robinson held out the shovel to me. “You wanna jump in?”

“I gotta hold Jax.”

“I’ll take him,” Robinson said, pulling the leash from my hand and replacing it with the shovel. “Have at it.”

I helped dig another foot before we all stopped to rest again.

“Only three more feet to go, Jimmy,” Robinson said, sitting under a tree with Jax.

“That’s not even gonna happen,” Bowser said.

I nodded. “I’m with him.”

The sky overhead agreed, as we suddenly heard the rolling grumble of thunder.

“Looks like we might be gettin’ some afternoon showers,” Sam said, peering up at the dark clouds off to the west. “It’s movin’ in fast.”

“That’s not surprising. It’s Florida.” Robinson got up and walked over to the grave. “This’ll have to do.”

“Yessiree, it’ll do just fine,” Sam concurred. “We better hurry though. I’ll go and start gettin’ her ready.”

Sam went inside the house.

Robinson continued staring down into the hole. “Three feet will be fine, right?”

Bowser and Ted both shrugged, indicating they really didn’t care one way or another. Robinson looked over at me.

I still needed to tell him what happened to the dead bodies in the road back near Ted’s house—how they’d gotten up and walked away. I needed to tell him about the little girl in the woods, and Nicole. He needed to know.
Everyone
needed to know. But it could wait until we left this place, which given the approaching rainclouds, I had hoped would be soon. What happened after we were gone—whether or not the old lady we buried in the shallow grave would eventually rise again—well, that would be Sam’s problem.

“Three feet sounds good to me,” I finally said.

Ten minutes later, Bowser and Ted carried the old lady out of the house and gently laid her down in the grave. Thankfully, someone had closed her eyes, though it was still difficult to look directly at her pale blue face without feeling ill. I had seen dozens upon dozens upon dozens of dead bodies in the last few days alone, and the sight still wasn’t getting any easier to view. This one, this old woman, might have been the worst yet, as she reminded me a lot of my grandma. I envied Sam. He at least got to bury his wife. My grandma just disappeared into the early morning fog, a ghostly memory of her former self, and literally walked out of my life. Wherever she was, alive or dead, I hoped she was at peace. And I hoped someday I’d be able to find my own.

I stood back as Sam said a few parting words. Peaches quietly came up beside me.

“Where is Naima?” I whispered.

“Still out front with her father.”

“Did you find out what was wrong?”

“Yeah, I guess she saw the body inside the house.”

“That’s it?”

Peaches shrugged. “I think it surprised her, ya know. She was just expecting to go in and use the bathroom. You know how sensitive she is.”

“She’s gonna have to toughen up,” I said. “Things aren’t gonna get any easier.”

“I don’t think I’d ever want to reach a point where a dead body wouldn’t freak me out a little.”

“That’s not what I mean. She’s gonna die if she doesn’t learn to defend herself. Her father might not always be there to protect her. And given how unstable he’s become, I’d say that day will come sooner rather than later. None of us
want
to kill anything. But I don’t want to die, and I don’t think she does either. I’ve tried to explain this to her before, but I’m not sure how much got through.”

“I’ll try and talk with her when we get a moment,” Peaches said. “Maybe she just needs to hear it from another woman.”

Lightning flickered in the distance, followed by the sound of thunder a few seconds later. Sam seemed to get the message and wrapped up his eulogy. Then he grabbed a shovel and began filling the dirt back into the hole, slowly covering his wife. Robinson and Bowser jumped in to help once Sam gave the okay.

By the time they had the dirt filled in and the ground leveled off, it started to rain. Sprinkling at first, and then pouring down in buckets. We all took shelter on Sam’s back porch.

“Y’all are welcome to hang out until the storm passes,” Sam said.

“Don’t think we have much of a choice,” Robinson replied. “Unless you want to run out there to the shed and get our gas.”

Sam looked at the shed thirty yards out getting pelted by the rain. The door was left open. “I’d rather not.”

“Then I guess we’ll stay.”

The back door opened and Aamod stepped out. For once, he didn’t have the shotgun in his hands. Naima stood behind him in the doorway, quiet and obedient as ever.