Generation Dead - 07 (9 page)

“Got a call from
Ottawa
.
  We got another
job,
”  Jake
said, handing me the paper.  It had an address on it, and the item we were going after was another heirloom. 

“Where the hell is Peotone?”  I asked, looking at the address and item list.

Julia looked at the items and whistled. 
“Looks like we might have to do some heavy hauling for this one.”

She wasn’t
kidding .
  The items included a set of books, a .22 rifle, and a roll-top desk.

“A desk?
 
Seriously?
  I hope you said
no,
” I said, shaking my head in disbelief.  We’d had strange requests before, and there were some things we said no to as a matter of logistics. 
We had
gone after cameras, sweaters, and the occasional chair or two, but a desk?  What was next, a piano?

“I didn’t say yes, but I said we’d try our
best,
” Jake said with a smile.  “We can take the truck, it shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Why can’t we take a boat?”  I had no idea where Peotone was, so I assumed it was accessible by boat like most of our outings.

Julia fielded that one.  “Peotone is in the middle of literally nowhere, surrounded on all sides by fields.  In normal farm country it’s be a cakewalk.”

“Let me guess.  It isn’t normal farm
country,
” I said bleakly.

“Big prize for the big
boy,
” Jake said. “
It’s
right smack dab in the middle of a grey corridor, being one of the towns that connects directly to the interstate.”  A grey corridor was a
section
of the country that ran alongside a highway. You could live in it, but the threat of zombies was increased because of its proximity to a highway that once had transported thousands of fleeing people, and thousands of infected people. A lot of the towns were just abandoned, and it looked like Peotone was one of them.

“Which one?”
It didn’t matter, but by this
time,
I figured I would at least sound interested.

“I-
57,
” Jake
said,
“Right off the main connection to the city itself.”

“Great.”  I couldn’t have been more sarcastic if I took lessons. Ordinarily I would be fine, but we just got back from zombie central, not to mention a couple of altercations in the capital that left a bad taste in my mouth.  Add it all up and I had a serious case of the ‘no
wannas
.
’

“What’s the pay?” Julia asked. 

“I decided to up the rate, since this was a big item.  If we managed to get the desk,
we would
require an additional two gold pieces and five silvers.  Not that we’d have anything we were saving the money for, right?”  Jake cocked a side grin at me and I came close to knocking him on the head for it.

“All right.
  When do you want to go?” I figured it was better to stay busy than bored and get to thinking about all of the things that weren’t quite right with my world.

Jake mused for a minute, taking the time to look out over the treetops.  “Let’s take a day to get our bearings back, then another to set up and plan, and take off on the third.  Cool?”

I was good with it, but Julia apparently wasn’t.

“Hey, guys.  I think I want to sit this one out.”  Julia seemed
nervous;
as if
she was
fearful,
we would make fun of her.

Jake cocked his head and gave her the full brunt of his brown eyes.  “What’s up?  You got a boyfriend somewhere?”

Julia snorted. 
“With you two around?
  Who could compete?  No, I just want to get some things done around here that need
doing;
that
have needed doing for a long time.”

Jake nodded, and I think he might have actually understood more than Julia was giving him credit for.  I knew for sure when he spoke again.

“You’re right.  I think Jake and I may be doing the same, maybe on this
trip,
”  Jake
said.

It was my turn to look confused.  “What?”

Jake laughed.  “All in good time, Aaron, all in good time.  Let’s get some lunch.”

Chapter 15

The day off flew by, and by the time the second day was
here,
my head was already
on
the trip. Jake and I sat at the big table in the lounge area and mapped out the route. 
Essentially,
we were going to be heading south and then west, with very little activity in between.  That was okay with me.  The last trip had been a little tense, so I could handle easy this time around.

“The biggest thing we need to worry about is fuel.  We can fill up in
Ottawa
, then that will get us as far as Peotone, which seems to be about eighty miles, one way, and back.  We’ll be tight, but we can do it.  I just hope the desk doesn’t cause serious
problems,
”  Jake
said.

“If it does, we ditch it and don’t take payment for it. Simple.”  I looked at the map and pointed. 
“
Can we take highways?”

“We can take I-80 for the trip over to the west, but I don’t know the condition
of  I
-57. If
it’s
bad, we’ll have to take another route.”  Jake seemed anxious to get going, but I didn’t want to move until tomorrow.

“All right.
  Are we packed yet?” I asked.

“Not yet.  If we’re done here, let’s get to it.”

“I’ll get the truck.”

I went outside to the garage, and pulled out the truck we used for off-river collections.  It wa
s a Ford F-150
king cab, with a lift kit that raised the vehicle an additional ten inches.  Big tires allowed for off-road capability, and this bad boy was fully
four-wheel
drive.  The only downside was a slew of flower stickers that Julia had stuck on the back window when she was a little girl, and we never got around to taking them off.  It wasn’t easy trying to be tactical when your ride had flowers on it.

I piled my pack behind the seat and put my rifle in
a storage rack
as well.  I was partial to the heavy hitting M1A, while Jake preferred the simplicity of the SIG 556. 
It’s
piston-recoil mechanism was easy to maintain, and my military weapon was easy as well.  We didn’t use our heavy guns all that much, but we never left them behind.

After packing the truck, Jake and I sparred for a bit, keeping ourselves loose and trained.  Jake was a little more deliberate this time, and though he tagged me couple of times, I rang his bell enough to get his attention.  Julia came in to watch our last session, and she studied our moves, looking for weaknesses for the time when she challenged one of us to fight.

Jake and I squared off on
e
last time, and this time I waited for him to come to me.  He didn’t disappoint.  Jake darted forward, ducking down and striking out with his left foot, hoping to get me to step back so he could straighten up and swing a kick with his right.  I decided to force the issue sooner so I crouched down, bringing up my right leg and punching for his gut with my left hand.  I connected with his shoulder and forced him back, straightening him up and getting him to stumble a bit. 

I pressed forward and kicked out with my right foot, landing a solid kick on his thigh, knocking him onto his back.  I stood up and stepped forward, catching Jake as he slammed a shoulder into my gut.  He had rolled backwards,
and then
launched himself as soon as his feet were under him.  I could feel his arms wrap around me, but if I stayed
standing,
the advantage would be mine.

I swung a leg back, stopping my backward movement.  Jake grabbed my knee, but I brought it up faster and connected with his gut.  I slammed down with my elbow, knocking his breath out, then grabbed him around the waist and spun to the right, lifting him off his feet and tossing him into the wall.  He landed hand,
and then
bounced to his feet, his face a mask of rage and his eyes flinty.

“All right, then.  Baby brother wants to
play,
”  Jake
said , moving forward and bringing his hands up.

I knew I was in for it, but I was strangely calm.  I had never bested Jake so easily, and with an ego like his, it had to be difficult to swallow, esp
ecially with
Julia watching
.

Jake feinted with his left and hit me with his right, although I just managed to block the second punch.  Jake then launched a series of attacks that rained blows on my arms and head, although I managed to avoid the worst of them.  A punch got through my defenses and hit me square in the gut.  As I went over, I threw an uppercut to try and get Jake to back off, not realizing he was coming in to try and finish me off.

The punch landed on Jake’s
chin
and snapped his head back, causing him to drop his arms and fall to the ground in a heap.  As I recovered, I noticed Jake wasn’t moving, and Julia was coming over to check on him.

As she rolled him over, I could hear Jake
say,
“Check his hands for bricks, would you, please?”  I
guessed
Jake
would
be okay.

We waited a day longer than we had planned, mostly because Jake didn’t want to go out in public with a big lump on his chin.  I didn’t do much to help, I kept giggling every time I saw him, and Julia was no help either.  She kept leaving bricks where Jake could find them, and to his credit, Jake said nothing.

On the
night,
before we were to leave, though, Julia woke the local dead screaming about the load of bricks Jake had piled in her bed.  I just closed my door and let the two of them fight it out.

Chapter 16

In the morning, Jake and I climbed into the truck and headed out, waving to Julia as we left.  We knew
she would
be all right by herself.  No on
e in their right mind
would try
to
attack the park,
as
a family of cougars
roamed
in the woods and kept it free from trespassers. Not to
mention,
Julia was a crack shot and deadly with her weapons.  No worries there.

Jake drove, and we headed out along Route 71.  That road took us on a southerly tour of the edge of our domain, and into the river lands.  The road twisted a lot at the eastern edge of the preserve, and since we were really bad about maintaining the roads, it took us an hour to navigate the turns
and hills.  When
we cleared the hills, it was straight sailing to
Ottawa
, the big city on the river.  Once upon a time,
zombies had overrun this town
, but after a serious pushback by our dad, people had been coming back.  There had to be over five thousand people there now, and seemed to be growing daily.

We filled up at the one gas station in town, paying
a silver
for our gas and getting a handful of coppers in change.  Gas was extremely cheap, something my dad explained as the law of supply and demand, but I never paid attention when he started going on about economics.

A small jog north took us to the interstate, and we were able to make pretty good time.  The irony was the main highway swung north, and would have actually put us in Peotone’s backyard had it stayed straight.  As it was, we were travelling an extra twenty miles out of our way, but it was faster and easier travelling, so it was okay.

All other roads were maintained as well as could be expected, but the highway was a priority.  We had to be able to respond to an emergency in case of another outbreak, so the main highways had been cleared from the Appalachians to the Rockies.  It had taken ten years, and even Jake and I worked on it, but it was necessary.

An hour into the ride, Jake took us over the bridge at
Joslin
.  That town had never recovered from the big outbreak, and
it
was still a ghost town.  Teenagers dared each other to go into the dark buildings at night, and
everyone
in a while little pinpoints of light could be
seen
walking around at dusk.  There were places in
Joslin
that even the best of collectors refused to go, and the whole place had been declared off limits by the government several years ago.

“Bet there’s some neat stuff down
there,
” Jake said, riding over the bridge.  The big tires made a humming sound as we passed it.