Infected: They Will Eat You!: A Story of Family Survival in a Zombie Apocalypse (31 page)

“That’s not nice.”

“Well, if they did they just concentrated the population so this thing would spread easier. It could be good for us, there may be
way
fewer people here than normally would be.”

“That’s good.”

We walked back to the hummer and let Christine and Jesse know what we found out. “That’s scary.” Christine said once she heard.

“Yeah. It could mean that we don’t have to watch for infected so much as military. If they cleared this area and are still around they could patrol it or be stationed here.” I said, “I would love to find a healthy community but I’m certainly not interested in us being shipped off to some camp.”

We drove around a few more hours finding only a couple dozen infected. “There had to be ten thousand or so people here it’s hard to believe we have found so few still around.” I said.

“If they were moved it makes since.” Christine said.

“I guess.” I said, “I’d think more would have hidden, we would especially in a place as remote as this. I wonder about the reservations.”

“What reservations daddy?” asked Caleb.

“This is Indian country. There are a few reservations in the area. I wonder if FEMA has any jurisdiction on a reservation.”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“A reservation is a sovereign territory, I think. It is a country of sorts run by the tribe and the government has less control over it. I’m not sure how little control but it could be that if FEMA said leave the Indians could say no.” I explained the best I could, “We’ve covered most of town, let’s head home.”

“It doesn’t’ smell bad here.” Jesse spoke up, “Not like other places.”

He was right, there was no rotting meat odor hanging in the air. We hadn’t noticed the sweet putrid smell or anything unusual other than when we found those few infected.

“Think we can find all the infected we downed?” I asked.

“Probably, yeah.” Caleb answered.

“I can, I’ve been marking them on the map.” Jesse spoke up, “I thought it might be good to know where we found them.”

“Nice.” praised Caleb.

“Good, let’s go back and get them burned and then head home.” I said, “We don’t want to leave them and have them mess up the fresh air.”

“Can we stop at the health food store on the way back?” Christine asked.

“Sure.” I answered.

It took us an hour to clean up our mess and check out the store. On the way home the boys talked about the town and what we’d seen. Caleb was excited about the boots and western wear. Jesse wanted to go back to the Indian Territory store, more to climb the buffalo than to check out the store. Christine was quiet. I was worried now about the possibility of military in the area and where the FEMA camps were.

-——————————————

“We could move a refrigerator into the shop and get it running.” I said while helping Christine prepare dinner, “We can probably get fresh meat but we have no place to keep it.”

“That sounds good.” she said, “We have a few more chickens from somewhere and a couple are mean. We could have one for dinner tomorrow and save the other if we have a place to put it.”

“I’ll see about moving the one from the other house after dinner. I’d like to check the horses too.”

At dinner we discussed plans for the evening and next day. It was decided we would stay on the farm and work with the horses and get food storage set up. There were appliance stores in town if we needed anything and we had passed a place that installed solar panels and sustainable energy equipment. And there was still the generator to check on. We had everything we needed to create a ‘modern’ home.

The horses seemed happy to see us, all of them walking to the fence as we approached. We gave them oats and hay and said goodnight then strolled back to the house. We could see deer in the fields, they just watched as we walked by. Within an hour we had the refrigerator from the spare house moved to the shop and plugged in. It started with no problem.

“Now we can get some food.” I said.

“Can we go hunting now?” Caleb asked.

“Yeah, those deer are up there.” Jesse added.

“Not tonight. I’m tired and don’t want to deal with processing a deer.” I said, “We can go in the morning.”

The boys were disappointed but it was getting dark and I was still uneasy about being outside past dusk or before dawn. We hadn’t noticed any night creatures except a few howls from coyotes but it was too soon to let our guard down too far.

CHAPTER TEN

“There’s not much left around Denver except gangs and zombies.” John continued to explain, “We left Littleton when it started and stayed with friends in Bloomfield until there were too many.”

‘Gangs?” Caleb asked.

“No zombies, the gangs came later when we were in Boulder.” John answered, “We lived in a warehouse for the first year with two friends. One morning they were gone…”

“They just disappeared one night.” Cary interrupted.

We had found John, Cary and Dez their daughter hold up in a house just north of Rawlins. They had been hiding and wondering for the past four years making their way slowly north.

“Disappeared or left?” I asked.

“Not sure, their things were still there but they were gone.” John explained, “We stayed for two days waiting for them to come back then felt it was time to leave.

“We went to Boulder next…” John started.

“We used to live there.” Cary said.

“That’s where we saw the first gang.” John continued, “They were armed and drove around hunting the zombies, and people.

“We met a couple who had escaped a gang, they told us there were gangs from Denver to Fort Collins killing and looting. We left as soon as we could. We lived in Galeton and Pierce, and empty houses…then we found food and water outside of Cheyenne and started recognizing the signs you left along the road to Laramie leading us to Rawlins.”

“See, that was a great idea.” I said poking Caleb.

“I’m glad I thought of it.” he said grinning.

“You wish.” I returned.

I turned back to John “You won’t have issues with gangs around here, we run into an infected from time to time but it’s mostly safe. We have over twenty people in Riverton now and there are small communities around the area, nobody permanent here in Rawlins right now but patrols come through every couple weeks. You’re welcome to stay here and start something or join us in Riverton. I will warn you that any established community will quarantine you for two weeks just to be sure you’re not infected.”

“Two weeks?” Cary asked.

“We’ve found that anyone infected will turn within a week, usually a day or two. We use two weeks to be safe.” I explained.

“I think we would enjoy a rest and some people,” John said, “and would like to come with you.

I looked at Caleb to get some input but his attention was focused on Dez. I just gave a smirk and nodded, “Gather your things and we’ll get going then.”

Four horses were munching on grass in the back yard when Caleb and Jesse finally came out on the deck. It had taken me a couple hours but at day break I had started working to befriend all the horses we’d corralled and had taken most for test rids before choosing the four we’d be riding this morning.

“Morning,” I greeted, “It’s about time you guys got up.”

“I smell breakfast.” Jesse responded.

“Mommy’s got breakfast ready, I have the horses ready to go hunting.” I said.

“Hunting!” Caleb yelled excitedly.

“Eat, get ready and we’ll ride up the creek and see what we can find. It’s getting late.” I said.

“On the horses?” asked Caleb.

“Yep.” I said.

“Yippie!” he cheered.

It was eight when we started riding up the valley, even Christine came along. We took it slow to get used to the horses and to not spook any deer. We could see more horses eating a mile or so up the creek but no deer. It wasn’t until we reached some switchbacks in the creek bed and deep ravines that we spotted deer in a growth of trees. We dismounted and climbed a small hill overlooking a spot where the creek forked and trees and brush lined the banks. There were two groups including a large buck and two smaller ones.

“Look at that guy on the far right.” I whispered.

“Where? WOW.” Caleb said.

“He’s huge.” added Jesse.

“He’s beautiful.” said Christine.

“I bet he’s two hundred fifty pounds.” I observed.

“A ten point.” said Caleb.

“He’s yours, is that alright Jesse?” I asked.

“Sure, Caleb hasn’t got a deer.” he answered, “There’s a lot of them, should we try to get more than one?”

I knew Jesse wanted to shoot a deer and was letting his brother get his first “Well, that’s a lot of meat.” I started, “I’m not sure we can handle it,” I paused, “but we could smoke some and get a freezer….you guys have to help me process them.”

“So I can shoot one?” Jesse was excited and nearly too loud.

“Yeah, pick a doe. When you are ready I’ll count down and you guys shoot at the same time. Shoot on go.” I instructed.

“I’ll shoot that big doe up there in the grass.” he pointed to the left where four deer that I hadn’t noticed were eating.

“Good. Ready?”

“Yes.” answered Jesse.

“I am” said Caleb.

“One, two, three, go.” I counted.

There was a single
phut
but both boys had hit their mark. The buck ran up the creek past the fork and disappeared in the trees. The doe took a step and lay down. The other deer looked around then went back to eating. The suppressors had not made enough sound to disturb them and the reactions of the two deer weren’t enough to spook any.

We waited a few minutes looking through the binoculars. “I see him.” Caleb said, “He’s not far from where I shot him. See that tall tree over there? There’s a shorter tree to the right……just past it…..”

“I see it.” said Christine, “I see what I think are antlers.”

“That’s it.” agreed Jesse.

“If it’s on the ground let’s go get them.” I said standing.

That was enough to attract the attention of a few of the closer deer, they looked in our direction then bolted barking their warnings scattering the whole herd.

“I should have brought an extra horse to carry our kill.” I said as we mounted the horses.

“What will we do?” asked Christine.

“I brought big plastic bags and what look like canvas pack sacks but probably not enough for two deer.” I answered, “If need be I’ll walk and pack one out on my horse. We’ll put the sacks on Jesse’s, he’s the lightest.”

It took us over two hours to field dress, pack up and reach home. “We can hang the meat in the garage of the other house and process it in a couple days.”

“We can’t have some now?” asked Jesse.

“Of course.” I answered.

“I want to make jerky.” stated Caleb.

“Me too!” agreed Jesse.

“We can make a lot of jerky but it will be good to have a freezer full of roasts and steaks for the winter. It gets colder here than back home.” I explained.

“And there’s no Wegman’s.” Christine added with a frown.

“This
is
our Wegman’s mommy.” Jesse said pointing to the deer.

“Get to work. After lunch we’ll go to town and pick up a freezer and see what else we can find.” I said, “I’d like to make a smoker also and smoke some of this.”

Everyone worked happily, the boys talked about hunting and what they’d do with the meat. Before the plague they were both learning to cook and doing very well at it. Today’s world offered a different set of cooking challenges but they seemed to be adapting and their creative minds were on fire. In the midst of all the chatter about deer and jerky and deer on a spit over an open fire Caleb stopped and stared.

“Dad……”

“Yeah?”

“If these people have a boat that big doesn’t that mean there’s water around here?”

We all looked at the boat.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“And Jesse and I found fishing poles in the boat and a lot more in the shop.”

“That means there’s fish!” Jesse exclaimed, “Can we go fishing daddy!?

“Look around us.” I said, “We just got two deer and haven’t even started working with them. And, we don’t know if there’s water here or they drove five hours to get to water. Let’s deal with what we have
then
look into fishing. Make since?”

“Yeah.” they said in unison dejectedly.

“When we’re done here we can look at those maps we got. There’s a couple of the area and the state I think.” I added.

That got them excited again and talk turned to what kind of fish they’d catch and how big and the catfish we used to catch in Keith’s pond. It made the work go faster and soon the meat was hung and Christine was calling us for lunch.

“We have enough time to run into town and get a freezer.” I said as we ate, “We can look for dehydrators as well.”

“Yay!” cheered the boys.

“That sounds good.” Christine said, “Is there a way we can get the electricity to the house?”

“I’m sure there is but I think that’s a huge job to connect the solar panels. I haven’t taken time to look at that generator.” I answered.

“It would be nice if we could at least have the kitchen appliances working.” she said.

“I’ll look at it. Let’s get the meat we have taken care of then work on bigger projects” I said, “We can take a pickup into town so we can carry the freezer back.”

On the way to town both boys scoured maps calling out the lakes in the area giving every detail they could read and making some up. Christine and I listened and held hands. We were starting to feel comfortable and I know she cherished the stability we now have. It would be difficult to teller her what I had been thinking.

-——————————————

“You want to leave?! Here?” Christine nearly shouted.

“Not the area, the area is great, I think.” I started to explain, “Just this house.”

‘We love it here!”

“It’s a great place but not defendable. We’ve been lucky, or blessed, or something, and haven’t run into infected or gangs or military, we haven’t had to protect ourselves at all. We have tin cans on the fences and a few warning traps in place but it would be very easy to be overrun by infected or attacked by people. They could sit up on the hills and pick us off with no trouble.”