The Last Blade Of Grass (27 page)

As I climb into the bed, I can’t help but smile with delight at how soft it feels, even through the numbness. My body has spent a week on the road and in various states of physical abuse at the hands of the infected. I don’t feel pain since I am still heavily infected with the parasite, but my body still interprets and sends comforting feelings like this soft bed, and for that I am truly grateful. I wonder what those people that turn feel, do they feel comfort, or is that as lost as pain is to them? As I quickly drift off, I contemplate the horrors that people must experience after they turn, but before the fever wipes out their human mind.

Chapter Twelve

The Trip to Wal-Mart

“Eddie. Eddie. You need to wake up.”

I hear a voice echoing in the distance, and it takes a few seconds looking around to register Simone standing in the doorway calling to me. “Eddie, it’s time for us to go,” Simone says. It takes some effort to get up due to the continued stiffness in my body. I am a thankful again that I cannot feel the pain that should accompany such tense muscles as I get out of bed.

“I’m up, Simone. I’ll meet you outside in just a minute.” She gives me a smile and a small wave and disappears back into the hall. I love my wife. She is a good woman. Good enough to put up with me and strong enough to keep me in check. If she felt this trip wasn’t something we should do, she would have told me, and I would have listened. We work well together that way, I mean listening to each other. She has never been the type of woman that asks me how her butt looks in certain pants, and I have never been one to lie about what I see, so she hasn’t encouraged me to lie, and I haven’t felt a need to.

As I walk down the hall to head downstairs, I look into the kids’ room and smile at their lumpy forms under the blankets. It bothers me to leave them here while Simone and I head out, but we have never specifically looked for a fight before. We have always tried concealment and stealth to avoid any issues with regular people. Even the infected we haven’t intentionally sought out yet, just taking them out as we encounter them.

What really bothers me now is realizing that this far into the end of the world, hiding out is no longer going to help us survive. More and more we are going to have to seek out trouble and try to stamp it out before it is strong enough to seek us out. That goes for the infected as well as human kind. The runner that tackled and bit me must have been following the two slower infected, and was staying hidden. It was employing its own sneaking strategy and using the slow infected to flush out a human, like me, to sink its teeth into. I just hope we don’t have any radioactive infected people from the East start showing up here.

My thoughts come to an abrupt end as I step out of the door and see four bicycles loaded and six people waiting for me. Simone, Hannah, and Mike are standing by the bikes. Greg and Lilly are just off to the side talking with them.

“Who wants to fill me in?” I ask as I walk up to my bike.

Simone replies, “Hannah thinks she would be more help as an extra rifle than sitting here as a babysitter. Mike... Mike’s mother passed away in her sleep a short while after we went to bed. I told him I am not comfortable with him staying at the ranch when we are leaving our other kids behind. He isn’t sure that he wants to come with us, but I’m not willing to have him stay here right now.”

I look Hannah in the eyes to question her coming along, and then back at Simone. “Okay,” is all I can say.

“Mike, you understand my wife’s reasoning, right?”

“Yes, Mr. Keeper. I do.”

“If you come with us, you can go your own way any time you want all right, but you won’t be able to return here without us. You don’t have to deal with these guys at Wal-Mart, even if you make it all the way there with us, okay?” I ask. He just nods. I also feel better with him coming along than leaving him here with our smaller children. “I’m sorry about your mother, Mike.”

Lilly and Greg just stand there looking at all of us. He has his arm around Lilly’s shoulder in a protective hug. I survey the group and wish we had a bunch of ex-military people on the ranch with us. It would sure help right now… My mind drifts off with that last thought, and I know what we can do. I’ve figured out our bluff.

“Simone, Greg, come with me. We need to get the military uniforms from the bunk house attic.”

When we return, we start loading the boots and uniforms into the trailers, where there is some space left. “Lilly,” I start, “I have a pretty good idea how we’re going to handle the guys at Wal-Mart when we get there, and I’m feeling pretty confident now that my idea might work. The thing is there is a good chance that we will be bringing a bunch of people back here once this is done. The women aren’t the only ones being held captive, and there may be other people with the bad guys that may be coming here as well.

“I won’t let any of the men that have been involved in the rapes or murders survive this ordeal, but there might be others who have roles that are questionable, they might not have participated in anything but let the others do what they were doing just so they themselves could have a safe place to stay. Are you getting what I’m driving at, Lilly?” I ask.

Lilly shakes her head, and says forcefully, “I don’t think you should bring anyone back here but the hostages. Only the people we can absolutely trust.”

“I have to agree with her,” says Greg.

I nod, and reply, “Look, I know what you’re saying, and I agree. I will do my best to make sure no one involved in the rapes makes it here. What I mean is, some might slip through, and it will be up to all of us to figure out when they arrive if someone shouldn’t stay here, okay?

“We should also remember what Jessica told us about the girl that was killed in front of her. She feels guilty that she didn’t step in, didn’t fight to protect that girl, but we all know that she would have ended up dead as well, or at least badly beaten. There was no way for her to overcome those three men and stop what was happening. In a perfect world, sure, you fight and cry for help, but in this one, sometimes people have to make horrible decisions to survive.

“Jessica survived and quite possibly there are other people at that Wal-Mart that have been doing the same thing.” I look at both of them in the eyes and know they understand what I am thinking. “I promise you both, that if I am able to bring anyone back, none of them will be the rapists or killers, and I will let the hostages tell us who they are.”

Lilly steps away from Greg, stops two steps in front of me, and asks, “And what if all the hostages are dead?”

“Then everyone else will die too.” I smile while I say it. I know it isn’t the appropriate thing to do, and it must make me look a little evil as I reply to her question, but it makes me feel good to think about killing all of those bastards. I look at Greg, “We have a good chance of pulling this off if Arthur and Samantha haven’t made contact with the Wal-Mart group yet. Wish us luck?”

Sarcastically, Greg replies, “How about, break a leg?” We both smile at each other, shake hands and I walk around and sit on my bike.

“Mike, we are going to be riding at a good pace, not racing, but not a leisurely speed either. Simone and I will alternate between being the lead and rear bike since we have the night vision goggles. There is enough light out here to ride safely in the middle of the road, but we still need to look out for obstacles—like branches—or perhaps an infected that’s out for a stroll. We’re all responsible for each other while together. If you need to stop or rest, hoot like an owl. And don’t try and push yourself too hard. If you need a break or an easier pace, let us know. We will all need to rest as well at some point. If you see possible danger, bark like a dog and point but don’t stop, the person in the rear will look with their goggles.

“Reactions to danger from the side and rear will come from the rear rider. The calls we give are simple like,
Bikes stop, shoot left
or
Bikes faster, infected at r
ear. Got it so far?”

He nods.

“Okay, so never pass the lead bike unless a switch or rear infected has been called. When we switch from front to rear, a switch is called out, and the front rider speeds out ahead of everyone, stops and looks behind at the group as they come up to pass. The rear rider speeds up to get in front, the stopped driver hops on, and catches up after everyone has passed them.

“Still following me?”

He nods again.

“It is pretty much the same scenario with a rear infected call, except the stopped bike in the lead would shoot the pursuing infected. That’s about it I think, any questions?”

Mike says, “Um yes, why don’t we just call out,
I need a break,
or
I see danger,
instead of hooting and barking?”

“First, because Simone and I need to look around with our goggles, to check everything out. There may be people and not the infected out there. If a sound is going to travel to potential bad guys besides the infected, I want it to be animal sounds, not voices. Second, it’s just more fun that way.”

Simone and I put on our goggles, and the four of us roll our bikes with their saddle packs and trailers out the gate, where we hop on and ride to the road. We ride for fifty minutes in the cool night air before we take our first break. It is just after 3 a.m., and we are on Wards Creek Road about forty minutes ride away from the east edge of Rogue River.

It’s nice to have those goggles off my head. It is bizarre to see the world as a bright green, fuzzy landscape. And the lack of depth perception definitely takes getting used to when riding on a bike.

The only issue we ran into so far was a tree that had fallen onto the road. We stopped and checked the area to make sure it wasn’t a trap or bandit stop, but it looked like it was just time for this tree to come down. The ground had been eroded from a small stream, and the whole root base had ripped up out of the ground. It was just dumb luck that it happened in between Arthur’s group coming through and ours.

“How are you doing, Mike?” I ask.

“I’m doing all right,” he says, casually. “It actually feels really good to be out here. Like I am finally doing something positive and not just running.”

Even though the night sky is dim, I can see him drop his head slightly, as if he is embarrassed. “Mike, there is nothing wrong with being happy that you’re alive. The whole point in this struggle is to survive.”

He just nods.

Simone and I look at the map to confirm where I think we are and let Hannah and Mike know the plan.

“We have another forty-five minutes to make it to the edge of Rogue River,” I say. “Once we get there we’ll have to walk the bikes along the edge of town and be much more careful.”

Simone adds, “We also have about fifteen minutes left on this road before we start coming to houses right off the road. We will have to ride a little slower and be prepared to really peddle hard to get out of the way if anyone or anything is hanging out by the houses. At this hour it’s much more likely a thing, so really keep an eye out. The good news is, we have been this way several times and have already cleared out the locals that were outside by their old houses.

“Let’s all get going and remember, if we stop to shoot an infected, step off and away from your bike. If there are more of these runners out there, and they are following a slower infected, you don’t want to get tangled in your bike if you need to move quickly.”

*

We bike for another thirty minutes before I pull our group to a stop. There is a line of houses just off the road to the right, about three hundred yards ahead of us. I can hear the moan from an infected coming from up there. We can all hear it now that we’ve stopped, moaning, and a dull banging.

Mike asks, “What do we do?”

“This is going to slow us down, but we need to clear this spot. If we let that thing keep moaning, it will eventually attract others, if there aren’t others already on the way. Plus, it found something alive that it can’t get to. We have to make sure it isn’t a person that’s trapped.

“Hannah and Mike, I want you two to climb up a tree. Each on a different one, I don’t want you both getting trapped in the same place. It’s too dark for you to walk around these trees and bushes without night vision. A runner could be on top of you before you could shiver.”

“Can they see in the dark better than we can?” Mike asks.

I shrug in the dark, aware that he can’t see my response. “Not that I’m aware of, but we aren’t going to take any chances. The runners are smart. I think they can lay traps and stay concealed. If I was a runner, I would be hiding behind a bush waiting to see if any tasty flesh walks up to deal with this moaning infected down the road.”

“Enough talking, boys,” Simone chides. “Mike. Hannah. Do what he said, get in a tree. Eddie, let’s get going, I want to get back on those bikes as quick as we can.”

I nod, grab my baseball bat off the bike and we move toward the sound, but at opposite angles. We split into a V shape where the sound is at the 12 o’clock. Simone is heading at 11 o’clock out into the road, and I am at 1 o’clock heading toward the houses. I’m scanning left and right, taking a few steps, stop and listen, then move again. Simone is doing the same, and we are both keeping each other in view. Once we are about twenty-five yards apart, Simone signals to me to change direction, and we both head directly toward the sound. The banging is coming from a fifth wheel trailer parked in a driveway about seventy yards in front of us. The larger problem is the banging is coming from the opposite side than we are on, probably where the door is.

As we work our way forward, I keep re-living that runner’s tackle. Every time a breeze blows through the branches around me, it makes me think I’m about to get hit by the real life boogeyman. I need to pull it together. My little psych out job is just going to get me or Simone killed. Okay, that did it. I focus on Simone, and it brings me back.

Just twenty more yards to go, but I have a hedge I need to get past without making any noise. I am right next to the house, and the hedge runs from the road right up to some rose bushes next to the wall. Who the hell plants a hedge like this? They wouldn’t even be able to walk around their house if they wanted to.