Only The Dead Don't Die (20 page)

Scarlett turned to give Ella a big hug, so happy the girl had finally decided to talk again but noticed that Justin and Ella were completely lost in conversation.
They must have oodles and oodles to talk about.

Scarlett and Dean rode in the Fiat in silence. Once the two of them had climbed inside the cab of Dean’s jackknifed semi, Dean finally spoke. “What’s this all about? The Stockton Boys hasslin’ you? I warned them. I’d just as soon shoot ‘em dead if either one of them messes with you.”

“No Dean. I can handle those two jerks. Remember the day when you found me
(
it felt like a lifetime ago
), you said you had a plan. But if you
do
have a plan, you’re leaving me—all of us, out of the loop. So, I’m thinking, maybe there
is
no plan.” She left it at that.

Dean rubbed at his chin and didn’t speak for a moment. “The thing is, I
do
have a plan. It’s just not workin’ out the way I had intended. Why do you think I come out here every day?”

“To be rid of us, I suppose,” she shrugged, looking out the window, pretending to watch the sun peeking above the horizon.

“Now that’s where you’re wrong. I come up here every blasted morning hoping to find help. The military or—
someone
? I’ve listened to this CB radio for hours. Something just isn’t right—things are worse than I thought. Hell, we should’ve seen signs of the military by now,” Dean’s voice sounded despondent.

Has he given up?
“That’s why we need a plan,” she encouraged.

Dean ignored her. “And, and all of this—it’s too much for an old fella like me—keeping you all safe, keeping the generators running, finding the supplies—”

It was his turn to vent. She could hear the agony in his tired voice. “Dean, you’ve done an excellent job.” Now Scarlett felt bad; she hadn’t meant to be ungrateful. She had never thought about it from his point of view.
I suppose all of us have been trying his patience.
“So what
exactly
is your plan?”

“I had figured on headin’ up to Travis Air Force Base to scope things out. Search for signs of the military or a refugee camp. If that doesn’t pan out? Then, hell, just keep headin’ west to San Francisco and check out all the military installations up and down the California coastline.”

“So, what’s stopping you?” she gently prodded.

“Well, it’s on account of—you know . . .”

She stared at him “What? What exactly are you trying to say? You think I’m stupid or something,” Scarlett’s voice went up an octave.

“Truth is, I’m afraid to leave you and Ella alone with the likes of Paxton and Nate.”

“That’s ridiculous,” she laughed. “They don’t mess with Ella. And by the way, LuLu practically threatened me to keep away from her men,” she shook her head with disgust.

“So, take all of us. We can all go together. Why not?” Scarlett asked.

“For one thing, fuel is downright scarce. We could get stranded or trapped for days. It would be sheer lunacy to endanger all of your lives,” he stated his case.

“Don’t you see, our lives are in danger every flippin’ day, even when we’re in the hotel. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but those things are aware of our presence. Yesterday, they actually seemed to be searching for Justin and me. It was like they
knew
we were there—waiting to ambush us. They actually had us cornered. It’s only a matter of time before they converge into one huge mega-horde, surround the hotel, and storm right over that chintzy 4-H Club fence you made,” she shuddered.

She was surprised at his silence. Was he considering her words? “Dean, I have this uncanny feeling—I don’t know, call it intuition, if you will, but
they
are learning. And we don’t stand a chance in hell. We’ve got to find help. The hotel’s a death trap—waiting to happen,” Scarlett’s voice cracked, for at that instant she had a fleeting image of death. The image was so intense she could almost feel the dagger of death slowly piercing her heart.

“Cheer up,” his tone suddenly changed. “Let’s hope Luther has some good news for us. If not, betcha bottom dollar I can sweet talk him into taking the road trip with me,” Dean said, faking a smile.

“Uh, right,” her sarcastic tone said it all. “Do you
really
think Luther would be coming here if he knew of a safe,
normal
place?” she frowned, disappointed in Dean’s decision.

***

The next morning Dean drove Scarlett and Justin across town to the western end of Vacaville along westbound I-80. Scarlett noticed that a path had already been cleared, making it an easy trip for the oversized Ram truck. Dean parked the truck in the middle of the interstate a few yards before the Monte Vista Avenue exit.

“Might as well head Luther off at the pass,” Dean drawled with remnants of what sounded like a southern accent.

Scarlett found Dean’s down to earth, southern-like attitude comforting.
When he’s not in a grumpy mood.
Today, they were all upbeat. Hope and anticipation were good for the soul, she decided.

“By the way Dean, where are you from? You have this way of talking sometimes—” Scarlett started.

“Dude, sometimes you talk like that cowboy who made all those vintage westerns . . . you know, what’s his name?” Justin quipped, but it was evident that Justin didn’t know the actor’s name.

“John Wayne?” Scarlett offered, trying to hold back a smile.

“Exactly,” Justin said.

“I know, I do sound like an old-timer. Well, older than I actually am.”

“Like dude, how old are you anyway?” Justin asked in amazement.

Dean chose to ignore the question. “Born and raised in Las Cruses, New Mexico on my dear ole granddaddy’s ranch. See, I was sort of an accident, and in those days, it was a mortal sin to have a child out of wedlock. Soon after birth, my mama left me there with my granddaddy.”

“Didn’t she visit you?” Justin seemed sad.

“Sometimes, but as the years passed, and she finally did get married, she forgot about me. Had too, that’s just the way it was back then.”

“That’s so sad,” Scarlet sighed.

“Never thought of it that way. Life on the ranch was great. Had lots of family around. Learned a hell of a lot of things—how to live in the real world, learned how to do things with my hands and how to use my brain. Yep, not afraid of a little blood, sweat, and tears. No computers back then,” he said, turning to Justin.

“How did you meet Mary?” Scarlett asked.

“Well, it was on account of my granddaddy’s deathbed wish. Naw, you didn’t argue with him,” Dean paused, smiling as if lost in a pleasant memory. “He had it in his mind that I was wasting my life away at the ranch. Just before he passed on, he sold the ranch and set up a trust fund. It was all mine.
If
I went to college—in California. He said I needed some modern-day learnin’ cause the world was changing fast, and I’d better be ready for it.”

“You went to college in California?” Justin asked in astonishment.

“You betcha, Chico State,” Dean almost sounded embarrassed. “And that’s where I met my Mary.” A tear drifted down his cheek. “So, if I talk a bit like an old-timer, it’s just a bit of my ole granddaddy and the ranch in me.”

Scarlett thought about what Dean had said, and she felt like she understood him better now. It was funny how all of one’s life experiences (good and bad) molded one’s way of thinking and edged a path for one’s journey through life. And, it made her wonder what event or series of circumstances had been the catalyst for mankind to end up like this: soulless man-eating creatures.

The three of them sat low in their seats, windows rolled-up, so their human scent wouldn’t give them away, only leaving the security of the truck to relieve their bladders and only when that was absolutely necessary and safe. Silently, they nibbled on their cooler-packed lunches. And they sat there. Waiting. And Waiting.

Justin fiddled with the purple cell phone making sure it still worked. He even tried calling Luther several times: no one ever answered the phone. Small groups of two, sometimes three or four creepers ambled along the destitute highway, fortunately not aware of their presence.

At dusk, Dean finally said, “Let’s call it a day, shall we? Don’t think Luther would risk traveling this damn freeway in the dark.”

They all agreed. They made it back to the hotel in time for dinner, not wanting to rouse the suspicion of the Stockton Boys. Dinner was particularly glum that evening. Justin’s usual exuberance didn’t fill the dining room. Scarlett hadn’t realized how much they had relied on Justin’s never ending enthusiasm, his funny impressions, and silly exaggerations to keep them entertained, or rather, distracted from the creepers that restlessly paced outside the barbed wire gate. For some reason, Nate and Paxton didn’t seem threatened by him; Justin could actually get away with a bit of mild teasing with his never-ending supply of outrageous quips.

However, even Nate and Paxton were exceptionally quiet and sedated during dinner. Dean didn’t even bother to ask Nate and Paxton how much fuel they had scavenged today. And Scarlett, as always, avoided expressing her opinions at the dinner table. Her outspokenness often caused a flare-up with LuLu, which would then cause Nate and Paxton to tell LuLu to shut-up, which would in-turn cause Dean to get angry. For some reason, tonight, everyone seemed to be on their best behavior.

After dinner, Justin helped Ella with the dishes while everyone else seemed to feign tiredness and went upstairs. As usual, Nate, Paxton, and LuLu stopped off at the second floor. Scarlett had a sick feeling that she did
not
want to know what the three of them did—besides the drinking. According to Dean, The Stockton Boys were even meaner when they were drunk.

Scarlett sat cross-legged in the middle of her bed sulking, in desperate need for someone to talk to. She absentmindedly shuffled a tattered deck of Bicycle playing cards (she had found in one of the vacant hotel rooms) and set up the deck to play an old favorite game Aunt Marge had taught her as a child: clock solitaire.

Raised by her elderly Aunt Marge, she had grown up playing cards, reading, drawing, listening to music, and there had always been daydreaming . . .
How I used to
love
daydreaming—haven’t done that in ages.
Luckily, she had learned to keep herself occupied without all those electronic gadgets, or surely she would have gone insane by now. She wondered how the younger generation was managing these days without their electronic devices to keep them entertained and distracted.
If
there were other people out there? Surely there must be.
Why’s it taking so flippin’ long for the military to take control?

The Super-Summer flu must have been far more devastating than she had realized. Every night she stayed awake thinking, worrying, and regretting all the things she should have done. Her thoughts often drifted to Cyndi and her two precious sons, thinking of how it might have played out: one of the boys gets the flu; then the other son gets the flu. Cyndi, always the perfect mom, stays home with the boys, makes them a pot of homemade chicken noodle soup—does everything a mom should do. Then one afternoon, Cyndi checks on the boys during their nap only to find that they’d mutated into grotesque creatures. Suddenly one of her sons rips the flesh out of her neck with his—
its
teeth, and Cyndi becomes one of
them
. Then Rex comes home to his family of, of—Creepers.

Stop it!
But try as she might, those gruesome thoughts continued to haunt her every single night.
Think Positive
. How does that song go? “You got to accent-u-ate the positive, eliminate the negative, latch on to the affirmative . . .” Maybe Cyndi, Rex, and the boys had made it to Levi’s Stadium? Scarlett scolded herself. She should’ve gone to Pinole by now to find out for herself. She needed to know if her sister, brother-in-law, and two nephews were alive.

That brought her back to that same question: How had she managed to survive? She was just an ordinary person, not a survivalist, just an elementary school teacher, who happened to be a damn good shot with a rifle. Even Kevin said she was a natural. It hadn’t taken any training except for learning how to load the gun, and aim, and gently squeeze the trigger without flinching. Kevin had taught her how to do that. Would she even be alive now if he hadn’t taken her shooting that one day last May?

The tears started. She had held them back for weeks, but now she didn’t try to stop them, tasting the salty droplets as they trickled down to her quivering lips.
Dammit Kevin, why’d you have to leave me like that?
A part of her still wanted to cling onto his memory, his comforting arms, and all those times he’d said he loved her. But she refused by shoving those thoughts away. If he had truly loved her, he wouldn’t have dumped her days before the wedding.

With a quick swipe, she smeared the cards across the bedspread, destroying the perfect clock-like spread she had so carefully arranged. Scarlett gazed about the boring hotel room: the ugly brown and blue striped wallpaper didn’t match the ugly brown and blue striped carpet, and both of those didn’t match the ugly brown and blue striped drapes.