Fade to Grey (Book 2): Darkness Ascending (13 page)

“Yeah, but I don’t believe it,” Sam answered. “From
what I saw on 403, the highway both into and out of Richland could be a parking
lot, which is the second possibility.”

When no one said anything, Sam continued, “Having
worked a ton of traffic accidents, there is a third—and in my opinion, most
likely—possibility. A single accident at any point can shut down traffic. With
people rushing around in panic after the president’s speech, there were
probably wrecks everywhere. If you have a wreck up around the border in the
southbound lanes, and another one—say at Devils Lake—in the northbound lanes,
then all of a sudden you have a long stretch of highway that’s empty. Sure, a
short time after the initial crashes other people probably tried to switch
lanes and go around. Maybe a dozen, maybe a couple hundred made it before
somebody wrecked or got stuck crossing the median. The point is, we really
don’t know what’s happening traffic wise, and we really won’t know unless we
get over there and take a look.”

“There’s a lot of little side roads all over the place
up here, most of them aren’t even on a map.”

“They’re on my map, well, on my laptop anyhow,” Eric
said.

“Sam,” Michelle asked, “that guy we ran in to—in the
little silver or white car—Daniel I think, didn’t he say that wherever he was
on 281 was backed up?”

Sam nodded, “Yes, but remember he also said that they
had abandoned their car and walked ‘cross country’ until they found another
abandoned car. For all we know, they could have driven that car 300 miles on
back roads before we saw them.”

“Alright, the roads are something we need to
consider.” Walter turned back to Doc, “Can you give Eric and Michelle an
abbreviated version of the rest of what happened that first night?”

Doc looked across the circle. “We found some bleach
and a mop, and cleaned up the area where the dead guy and his wife were. Did I
mention that he was the color of a lead sinker? So were the two that Mike shot
. . . and the two kids. The lady was a normal color, though. Anyhow, it was
probably close to 3:30 AM when everybody was back and settled. Somewhere in
there, Amy and Dave volunteered to stay with the people at the store, so when
we went back to the house, they drove down—I think in Walter’s truck. I was
tired, Rebecca was tired, everybody was tired. I guess that’s why we missed
it.”

“Missed what?”

“When we got back to the sickroom, Rebecca went to bed
and I took over observation duties. Mike was with me, and Brenda was still
awake as well. I checked on the three pyrexia cases . . .”

“What?”

“Pyrexia . . . fever. All of them were pushing past
102 degrees and fading in and out of delirium. We were using towels soaked in
cold water, but to be honest, I don’t think it was working much. That’s when
Mike taps me on the shoulder and whispers about Brenda.”

Mike stood again, “I had pulled up a chair next to
Brenda, just to chit chat, but right away I knew that something wasn’t kosher.
She had this little tremor, and she was really pale. When I said her name she
looked at me, but it was like she didn’t recognize me at first. And then she
handed me her little shotgun and said something like, ‘Tell Doc to tie me up.’”

“That’s what we did,” Doc continued. “We secured
Brenda to one of the cots and did a quick vitals check. Her pulse was rapid,
her temperature was 105. Her whole body was quivering and tensing against the
restraints.” Doc rubbed his eyes and continued with a tired yawn, “Within the
next hour, two of the three fever cases passed away. The third one . . .
changed. The other patients who hadn’t shown any temperature spike were moved
to a large RV out in the driveway.”

“Right after we finished moving them, Brenda broke
loose.”

Doc nodded at Mike, “She just tore apart the aluminum
frame of the cot. Pieces of it were still strapped to her wrist when Mike put
her down.”

“It took four shots—even then she was still trying to
drag herself towards me. Walter had come running down when he heard the
gunshots, and we used his pistol to finish her off.” Mike trailed his voice away
for a moment before adding, “I also had to shoot the one that was still tied
down. He . . . ‘it’ . . . was almost free when I pulled the trigger.”

“And, just so you know, the six people that we moved
to the RV, they’re still around . . . still OK,” Doc added.

Walter cleared his throat and stood. “We don’t have a
lot of time left. It’s almost 7:30 PM, and we need to come up with some type of
. . . plan I guess . . . before we go down and talk to the people at the store.
Before we do that, there’s a couple other things that need to be said.” Walter
turned toward Michelle and Eric, and then scanned all the way around the circle
as he spoke, “The next day, a few more of the people from the campground showed
up. I don’t know where they came from, or where they went after they left
Ravenwood, but they caused a bit of trouble—demanding food and gasoline. A few
shots got fired as well. Nobody was hurt, but that’s when we decided to put a
gate across my driveway. It’s also when we started having somebody on watch
both there, and up on the roof of the store.”

Walter sat back down and clasped his hands together.
“Don’t get me wrong, my heart goes out to everybody down there, and I have no
doubt that a lot of ‘em are good people, but we’ve got a few rotten apples as
well. Now, Bernice and me, well, we’ve been puttin’ back food and supplies for
quite awhile, just as a way of life I suppose. And for the past several days,
we’ve been using those to help out. It’s a very finite resource though, and
feeding the whole crowd we have is going to burn through it in no time at all.
Gasoline is another problem. So are guns. Hell, everything is a problem.
However, what I perceive to be our main problem, at least in the immediate
future, is whether or not we’re going to make a run at Ravenwood. There’s a lot
of folks who are hoping that some of their loved ones are still alive over
there. Myself included.”

Eric looked through Walter’s tough façade and saw the
pain lurking underneath. A rapid fire flashback to his conversation with
Bernice completed the puzzle. “Marty and Francis?” he asked.

Walter nodded.

“Don’t forget about the radio,” Dave added.

“What radio?” Michelle asked.

Walter said, “Bernice has a little radio room
assembled upstairs. Nothing fancy really, just a corner in her sewing room that
has a few different ways for her to get ahold of me when I’m down at the marina
or out on the lake. Marine band, GMRS, CB, that sort of thing. Anyway, several
times now we’ve picked up a faint . . . I guess ‘call for help’ would be
correct . . . that we think is coming from the campground. It’s on the FRS
band, and it sounds like a kid. Twice now we think he’s said that he’s ‘on a
boat on the inside,’ although Amy thinks he said that he’s ‘on a boat that’s on
its side.’ Problem is, he’s never answered when we’ve replied.”

“He might have the radio turned on, but not turned up.
You could hear him, but he’d never hear you because the volume was all the way
down,” Callie chipped in.

“In any event, we ain’t heard from him yesterday or
today.”

Several moments of deep silence followed before Eric
spoke. “Where are my uncle and Emily?”

“We completely hosed out the sickroom—bleached
everything—and burnt all the blankets, cots, pillows, and everything else that
had been in contact with any of the patients. Basically we stripped the room
down to the concrete, and then bleached the fire out of it. Walter found a few
single bed frames out behind the warehouse—the old metal angle iron and spring
variety—and we brought them up to the house. We’ve got a couple of comforters
folded in half to serve as mattresses,” Doc said.

“None of that tells me where they are.”

“Sorry, they’re in the sickroom—the garage. Rebecca
even set up a little privacy sheet between them.”

Eric stood, trailing his hand off of Michelle’s
shoulder at the last moment. “Here’s the way I see this. And keep in mind, this
is just my opinion, but I think we should go down and talk to the people at the
store. Find out who in their family is missing, and presumably, still at
Ravenwood. But I’ll be honest, at this point right now, I don’t want to promise
them anything. I’m not saying ‘no’ to the idea of jumping back into the lion’s
den, but we need to give some serious thought to the price that we’ve already
paid.”

“Agreed.” Walter said, “So here’s what I’d suggest.
Let’s head down there and talk to the crowd. I don’t want to make any
commitments at this point, other than to keep an open mind. Later tonight, if
some of you are willing, we can talk again and decide what we’re going to do,
OK?”

Several nods bobbed around the headlight campfire.

Callie shouldered her backpack and stood. Turning to
Walter she asked, “Do you mind if I connect my tablet to your printer and run
off some copies of the medical forms that Doc wants everybody to fill out?”

“Do you need some type of cable?”

“No, I can do it wirelessly, but I will need power for
the printer, and I’d also like to charge my tablet.”

“That won’t be a problem. For those of you that don’t
know, my house has been running on generator power since the grid went down.
The way it’s set up is pretty simple. Any white outlet covers are currently
nonfunctional. Anywhere you see a black outlet cover, that’s tied into the
generator. Most of those black covers are downstairs, although there’s a few
upstairs as well. You may also see a red cover here and there. Those are
connected to a separate circuit that is fed by an inverter generator. It
doesn’t put out anywhere near the watts of my diesel unit, so try not to plug
anything into a red outlet that’s going to suck a lot of juice. It’s mostly for
sensitive electronics like the radios and computers. Any other questions?”

“It’s not really a question,” Lenny said, “more of an
affirmation. I just want you to know again how much Glenda and I appreciate
your hospitality.” He stood and patted his ample belly as he continued, “I’m
probably not the best person to choose if you’re going to be sprinting either
into, or out of, the campground. But I’m not going to—as my old coach put
it—‘crutch out’ just because I’m carrying a few extra pounds. If you want me,
or even Glenda, on a line somewhere with a gun, or even a tennis racket, we’ll
be there. If you’d rather us fill a different position or have a different
responsibility, all you have to do is say the word. In the meantime, I’m going
to head back to Glenda and give her a very well deserved hug and kiss. She
promised me that she’d try and cook another batch of peanut butter brownies on
the wood stove downstairs. So gentlemen, and ladies, have your meetings and
make your plans, and let us know how we can help.”

“Peanut butter brownies?” Sam’s eyebrows shot up.

“Best in the world. She’s not used to cooking on top
of a wood stove though, and the first batch she tried turn into carbon.
Although I do say that the smell of burnt peanut butter is much preferable to
the atrocious fumes given off by that unholy concoction that Buck makes.”

Michelle shot to her feet, “WHO?”

“Um . . . I’m sorry, did I say something wrong?”

“What did you say?” Michelle repeated as she advanced
toward Leonard.

Leonard looked at the wild-eyed grin on Michelle’s
face as she approached. “Um . . . I said that the smell of . . . burning peanut
butter . . . was, um . . .”

Walter cut in, “We had an older couple show up here a
few days ago, apparently on yours and Andy’s suggestion. Buck and Fredrica—you
do know ‘em, right?”

“Oh yeah!” Michelle beamed ear to ear as an
involuntary shiver shook her body in anticipation of another round of Bucky’s
frying pan coffee.

“Well,” Walter chuckled, “I guess that’s a good thing
then. Anybody got anything else to say before we go?”

In response to Walter’s question, the radio crackled
to life.

“
Hey this is Scott up on the roof, can anybody hear
me
?”