Infected: They Will Eat You!: A Story of Family Survival in a Zombie Apocalypse (34 page)

“We didn’t have that at home.” Christine said questioning.

“Areas with more people were infected too fast for it to happen.” said Mark.

“The busses showed up a week after New York and most of the east coast was lost.” Johnathan said, “They were attempting to stop the spread in the more isolated parts of the country.”

“By concentrating people in smaller areas?” I said sarcastically.

“Exactly.” Johnathan continued, “People were being rounded up and bussed off against their will so many of us moved away from the towns and then came into the mountains. We watched and helped those we could then more busses came, full of people from other areas.”

“That’s where it came from,” Mark spoke up, “some on those busses must have been infected and it started to spread from there.”

“There were thousands of people still here and once it started the busses disappeared.” Johnathan ended.

“You mean they left once the infection started?” I asked.

“Yes.” answered Johnathan.

“That makes no since.” Christine said.

“Since when did government make since?” asked Johnathan.

“What happened to them all?” asked Jesse.

“We’ve only found a few hundred and we’ve been all over the area.” I said.

“We haven’t seen signs they are around like other places we’ve been.” added Caleb.

“They were here a month ago,” said Mark, “we went to Lander for supplies and saw them.”

“We’ll watch out but over the past couple weeks we’ve been driving around, hunting, fishing and haven’t felt in danger.” I said, “Right now I think we should start heading home. We have a load of meat we want to get cleaned and hung. Do you guys need anything?”

“We have enough.” Johnathan replied.

“We could use some of that coffee.” Mark spoke up.

“I’ll get you what we have.” Christine offered.

We had spent nearly two hours talking to Johnathan and Mark, sharing what information we had and getting to know each other. There were others people who escaped to the mountains most, according to Johnathan and Mark, would not let themselves be seen and would not be dangerous. Just to be sure they would spread the word about us.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“That grizzly’s back.” Caleb said as I walked to the fireplace, “Jesse and I saw him yesterday up by the Rainbow.”

“The same one?” I asked.

“Yep, he’s gotten bigger.” he answered.

We’d found the Brooks Lake area during our second year in the Range. It proved to be a superior hunting area. A lodge and cabins gave us a comfortable place to stay, it was easy to get to with vehicles and the fishing was great. If I had my choice I’d move our entire homestead there and leave the others in the valley. Instead I stole more and more time away to
hunt
.

That Grizzly
was a monster that broke into our storage cabin during our first hunt in the area and had menaced us on many since. We’d see him once a year but felt the results of his presence more often when he’d spook the game or steal one of our kills.

“Gotten bigger? That’s from eating so many of our kills.” I said.

“Should we go after him?” Caleb asked.

“No,” I paused, “let him be. The time will come but it’s not now. Where is Jesse?”

“He’s over in the processing cabin. You need to see what he has.” he answered.

We walked to a cabin close to the lake that we’d set up for processing our game and fish. It was now basically a large room with hoists attached to rafters and a series of tables and coolers. We did the bloody work there in order to keep predators away from our living quarters. It worked most of the time.

“Where did you find that?” I asked standing in the doorway staring at a quartered moose.

“Up by the Rainbow.” Jesse answered.

“It came charging out of the trees about fifty yards in front of us, Jesse put a round in it and it headed up the west hills.” Caleb added.

“We saw
that griz
up on the ridge, think he scared up the moose.” Jesse said.

“That’s a lot of meat.” I commented.

“Tell us about it, we’re the ones who lugged it a half mile.” Caleb said.

“Good job boys.” I praised and walked to the lake.

“
That griz
, I guess he gave us one back today,” I said aloud, “Thanks.”

“Next week is Thanksgiving.” I said as the boys and I stacked firewood.

“Really?” Caleb said.

“That means Christmas is close.” said Jesse.

“Yeah, in about a month.” I chuckled, “We haven’t seen that many turkeys but there are grouse up around the lake…..”

“We could get some for Thanksgiving!” said Caleb.

“Exactly.” I said.

“I’ve seen some right up here along the creek, lots of them.” informed Jesse.

“Perfect, then we won’t have to leave mommy or ruin the surprise by taking her.” I said.

With that we devised a plan to harvest some grouse and surprise Christine with a Thanksgiving feast. Over the next three days we shot five grouse and had them plucked and ready for cooking.

-——————————————

“I loved our Thanksgiving dinner honey.” Christine said, although her tone was anything but cheerful, “I’ve been thinking a lot about our friends and family and what happened to everyone.” she went quiet looking down and fiddling with a stone Jesse had brought her from the creek.

We had been sitting on the deck while the boys played after a very large Thanksgiving dinner. It was a peaceful afternoon and had been a happy day.

“I think about them a lot, more now that the holidays are here. I don’t know what Christmas will be like.”

“Christmas will be great,” I said, “We won’t have the clutter and distraction of over commercialization of the holiday or the pressure of buying the
right gifts
….it will be us and we can make it whatever we want.”

“But we won’t have anyone.” she said.

“We have us.”

“What about Johnathan and his family, could we invite them?”

“They may not be around, the last load of wood is still there.” We had taken three truckloads of split firewood to the base of the mountain where we met Johnathan and Mark, the first two had been taken the third was not. “The boys put an invitation to Thanksgiving dinner on the last one hoping to surprise you but it’s still there as well.”

“That was sweet of them.”

“They may have migrated somewhere for the winter or just hunkered down for now, not sure, but there’s no sign of them.”

“I hope they’re alright.”

“They know the area, they’re fine.”

The boys came running up yelling over each other about bison crossing the road.

“There’s a hundred of them!” shouted Jesse.

“They’re huge!” added Caleb.

We all ran to the top of a hill in time to catch site of the last few disappearing behind a hill heading north.

“They may be heading to Yellowstone.” I said.

“Why?” asked Jesse.

“Animals, and people, in the area go to Yellowstone in winter because of the geysers and thermal vents, warm water and ground.” I explained.

“Can we go?!” asked Caleb excitedly.

“I don’t know….let’s see what the next month brings. That could be a hard trip if it snows a lot. I wouldn’t want to get trapped up there.”

That did not go over well but everyone soon moved inside and to playing games. We had a lot to be thankful for even though we missed our friends and family. We had each other, we had food and shelter and the knowledge that there were others still alive and friendly, and we had buffalo.

CHAPTER TWELVE

“What is that?” Caleb was puzzled by what he saw in his binoculars.

I focused in on the dark mass on the landscape, “It’s a herd, a huge herd of them.”

“There must be a couple thousand.” he judged.

“At least. They’re headed toward Casper.” I said.

“Jesse’s in Casper, with Jackie.” he said partially informing me, partially reminding himself. “We have to do something, if they make it to Casper they’ll overrun it.”

“Yeah.” I agreed.

Caleb and I were tracking a herd of bison east of Pathfinder when we saw the infected. In the eight years since the infection we’d never seen so many together and they were all moving in one direction.

“We could get south of them and just start shooting.” he suggested.

“That’s probably the thing to do.” I agreed, “We just don’t want them heading into Saratoga or over to Rawlins. They need to go to the east of Medicine Bow.”

“How’d they all get up here?” he wondered aloud.

“Maybe there were more and this is all that’s left.” I suggested.

“That would mean there are more back the way they came.”

“Yep. Let’s be careful.”

We did not make it a habit to venture out alone, even in the yard, but I was on a mission. Christmas was two weeks away and although we’d cut a tree and decorated it we hadn’t done much else. This morning I was going to do some shopping.

Thus far it had been refreshing to enter the Christmas season with no plastic Santa’s in yards and no commercials and no stress to get gifts mailed on time. There was a sadness to it as well but Christine was finding her groove teaching Caleb and Jesse the meaning of Christmas. I was taking a chance of ruining the whole thing by bringing home presents.

We had spent the last four months hiding and fighting, traveling with no apparent destination only to be led here with relative ease and safety. In looking at the world we’d passed through and hearing reports from the few we’d met I felt that was a miracle. But was time to add some bling to our overly camoed life.

I’d seen Christine eyeing a dress in one of the Riverton shops so that was my first stop. It was a western style skirt and blouse, silver/grey and white with black and earthy brown accents. A nice wide leather belt, boots, an Arapahoe necklace and earrings to match made a sharp outfit. Down the street I found an assortment of makeup, I chose a few colors, one had to be right, perfume and a hair doodad.

Snow had started to fall while I was makeup shopping leaving a dusting on the ground. I had expected more snow by now so seeing this was no surprise. I
was
surprised by the set of footprints crossing the street. They weren’t crisp steps like the ones I was leaving, they left drag marks, more of a shuffle than a walk. I followed the prints, hands grasping my ‘purchases’ and found their maker down a side street. A rustle of my gift filled plastic sacks caused it to start to turn very slowly.

I stood and watched as it inched around and then toward me. The scene was surreal. My experience told me to react and how and how quickly but all I could do was stand and watch as it struggled to reach me.

“Slow.” I said “Really slow.” Then I drew my piston and shot it in the head.

I looked around and headed for the truck, there was more shopping to do.

The next two hours I spent driving around shopping and thinking about that infected. By the time I reached our driveway there was an inch of snow on the ground and it was still coming down.

-——————————————

“I think it was the cold.” I was explaining my run-in, “It didn’t look any different than others, there was less odor, much less, and it looked hard, when it fell it was more like a board than a person falling. Really stiff.”

“I’m worried that it was even there.” Christine said.

“There’s probably some dotted around and we’ll find them for a long time.” I replied.

“Why’d you go to town dad?” Jesse asked.

“I thought we weren’t supposed to go out alone.” added Caleb.

“I had some shopping to do, and yeah, I want you guys staying together.” I answered.

“You should have someone with you.” Christine chastised.

“Well, I won’t do it often at first but I’ll be making more solo trips. There’s a lot I want to do before the
real
winter sets in.” I said, “If the cold does make them slow down this is the time to focus on searching inside buildings. Right now I have work to do,
alone
.”

That said I retrieved my presents from the truck and started wrapping. It wasn’t Christmas paper that I found but I didn’t think anyone would mind the collection of birthday, wedding and generic gift wrap I had gathered. Later that day I snuck the presents under the Christmas tree and went to meet the family checking on the horses.

We had made it a habit to ride at least every other day to gain experience and let the horses become more familiar with us. It was paying off, we were all competent horsemen, could saddle them even though I was still the only one able to lift a saddle in place.

Back at the house Christine started heating water for tea while I planned a scouting trip into the neighborhoods in our area. Cheers erupted from the living room attracting Christine. “Hey, where did those come from?” she shouted.

“This one’s mine!” exclaimed Jesse.

“That’s no fair,” Caleb said, “You were shopping this morning.”

“Not sure what you’re talking about.” I just grinned and looked at the map.

They all walked into the kitchen holding presents. “Can we open them?” asked Jesse.

“It’s not Christmas yet.” answered Caleb.

“I didn’t think we were going to do this this year.” Christine said.

“We can do something.” I answered.

“I want to go shopping.” shouted Jesse.

“See what you started.” said Christine.

“Let’s not start the shopping thing. We can get anything we want any time.” I said, “I had a thought and did it. It’s not much just…….”

“Daddy’s right, we can get anything whenever we want.” Christine said, “Instead of shopping we can make things like they used to.”

“I know what I’m going to make.” said Caleb and immediately headed for the workshop.

“Me too!” exclaimed Jesse and ran upstairs.

The tea water was ready and Christine and I sat at the kitchen table as the boys ran in and out gathering materials and scheming.

“You started something.” she said watching both boys go out the back door with bundles clutched in their arms.

“Yeah, they’re excited.” was all I said.

An hour later the boys were in the kitchen hungry and rummaging for food.