100 Days in Deadland (10 page)

“That gives us less time to plan and report status,” I said.

“We should use treadmills,” Jase said.

“What?” Clutch and I asked at the same time.

Jase gave us a wide grin. “Treadmills. We should surround the house with them. Any zed who comes up to the house will step onto a treadmill and will just keep walking and walking. Then we don’t have to stand guard at all.”

“Exactly how are you going to power a hundred treadmills?” Clutch asked.

Jase shrugged. “Solar power, maybe.”

“Oh, solar power. Of course. I’ll pick some up on my next grocery trip,” I said drily.

Jase flipped me the bird. “Jeez, can’t you guys take a joke?”

I smiled, though Jase had a point. It was too hard to find humor in a world that had given up.

Clutch sighed. “C’mon. Let’s hit the road.”

Jase’s smile dropped. “I’ll grab my stuff.”

As we headed out to repair the gate, the weather reflected Jase’s mood. The sun refused to shine, giving reign to a gray mist instead. I felt sorry for the kid. Going into Fox Hills would bring back a lifetime of memories for him. Where he went to school, where his mom picked up groceries—everything we’d drive by would be a stark reminder of what he’d lost.

With the gate back in place and operational, Jase sulked in the backseat while Clutch drove down the gravel road. Jase feigned nonchalance, but in the side mirror I noticed that he stiffened as we drove by the empty ranch house he grew up in. It looked deceptively welcoming, the scene of death hidden within its red brick walls. My overactive imagination feared that Jase’s parents somehow had come back again and dug out of their graves. Fortunately, the house disappeared behind us with no sign of zeds, those related to Jase or otherwise.

Another mile down the road, Jase and I got out to move a small tree that had fallen across the gravel. Broken branches littered the gravel, and one low part over a culvert showed signs that the road had been underwater a few hours earlier.

A bloated zed lay floundering under the shallow rapids of a rushing creek beyond the culvert. Trapped under a log, its arms flapped clumsily at the water.

“I don’t get it,” Jase said from the backseat. “That thing’s probably been underwater all night. How can it still be alive?”

“They’re not alive, they’re just…echoes of life,” I answered honestly. It’s what I told myself every day so that I no longer thought of them as people. When the time came to kill—not in self-defense like when Melanie had attacked me—if I believed that they still felt or thought, I wasn’t quite sure I could go through with it.

When we reached Fox Hills, we had to lay down plywood in the muddy ditch to get around the roadblock. From there, Clutch drove down Main Street, straight through the center of town. The store we needed was on the opposite side of town, and rather than burn precious gas, he’d made the call to risk driving through the more populated areas of town. It also gave us a chance to see how many zeds we’d have to deal with if we were to start looting houses.

Last night’s storm had wreaked havoc on Fox Hills. Plastic trash bins that had lined driveways the day of the outbreak were now strewn about. Garbage was scattered
everywhere
. Diapers, magazines, and milk cartons littered every open space, looking like the aftermath of a wild party. Every now and then we saw a zed with its head shoved in a garbage bag, going after an easy meal.

“They’ll eat
anything,
” Jase said.

“Yeah,” I replied, though we all already knew their favorite meal.

Clutch drove around trees that had been ripped from the ground, and their branches crunched under the truck’s tires along with garbage. A tree had smashed a convertible. A Honda and a Chevy were slammed together like bumper cars. Every now and then, we saw a zed lying motionless on the ground, which meant they must’ve taken serious blows to the head during the storm. But the storm hadn’t taken out nearly enough. More zeds than I’d seen last time wandered aimlessly outside, open doors and broken windows the only hints as to where they’d come from, though I suspected most of the zeds still lumbered around inside their homes.

I held the pistol on my lap. I had the
tanto, but it was still in its sheath. My real confidence builder was the crowbar I’d found in one of Clutch’s sheds. Whenever we left the farm, I carried the crowbar since the knife was short and required me to get awfully close and personal to do any damage. The crowbar, on the other hand, was a power driver of cold iron.

At the sound of the truck’s engine, zeds turned and lumbered in our direction, sniffing at the air, but as we put distance between us and them, they soon lost focus and returned back to their eerie shuffling.

“Hey, you!” Jase yelled, opening his window. “Over here!”

Several zeds emerged from the shadows, coming at us. At the way their e
xpressions changed when they homed in on us, I could imagine their mouths watering at the sight of three healthy people.

“Fuck, kid. Are you calling every zed to us?” Clutch spat out, stepping on the gas.

“What are you doing, Jase?” I asked.

He kept waving, not answering our questions, but after a moment, he slumped back in his seat. “I saw someone. A lady. But she darted around the corner of that house over there.”

“We ain’t a search-and-rescue, kid,” Clutch said, then added more softly, “Roll up the window.”

“But we have to help others if we can,” Jase countered.

“She didn’t want our help,” I said. I’d seen her, too. She looked in her late fifties or early sixties, and she’d been carrying a baseball bat. We’d made eye contact just before she ran. Was it bad that I was glad that she’d run away rather than toward us? Any orphan we took in was another mouth to feed.

I was pretty sure I saw another couple—a man and a woman—watching us through shuttered windows from a small starter home. I didn’t mention them to Jase. I figured if they needed help bad enough, they’d run to us.

It wasn’t our job to play hero.

Selfish? Hell, yeah.

But honest. And necessary to survive. After all, I was only human.

Besides, after seeing what had happened to the girl at the corn bin, I realized that laws and scruples were no longer viable in this new world. Now, people scared me as badly as zeds.

What I saw next made me burst out laughing.

The guys turned to me, and I pointed. “Look. A zed kabob.” Off to my right, a zed had somehow gotten itself skewered onto a still-upright parking meter, with the thick round top of the meter embedded in its ribcage. Its arms and legs flailed uselessly like it was trying to air-swim. The guys didn’t find it funny, and we continued on.

A stoplight was down in one intersection, and we had to turn around and find a detour. Two more detours past smashed cars and fallen power lines, and we were back on Main Street. I carefully noted every obstruction on a small notepad.

It took us twenty-three minutes to drive six miles through town and to our destination. Home Depot was a new massive store on the outskirts, sidled up against an old elementary school of all things. A wood privacy fence went out from behind the school to enclose what I assumed to be the playground.

A sense of bad omen settled into my stomach. I turned in my seat to face Jase. “When the outbreak hit, when did they let out the schools?”

He shrugged. “I don’t think they officially closed, but I know some parents picked up their kids, anyway. It all happened so fast. At the high school, some of the teachers let us out early, and I drove my bike home. But those who rode buses…I-I don’t know how they got home.”

I grimaced. “I’m guessing school is still in session.”

“You have a bike?” Clutch asked.

Jase nodded. “Mom and Dad got me a kickass Suzuki for my birthday. I’ve been practicing up for motocross. I’m going—I mean, I was going to race at the county fair this summer.”

I could hear the enthusiasm in Jase’s voice bleed out as he spoke.

“The bike’s at your house now?” Clutch asked.

“Yeah, why?”

“Because a bike is the perfect vehicle for us to scout the farm and surrounding area. We’ll pick it up on our way back. Don’t worry. You’ll get plenty of motocross practice in.” He sighed as he turned into the large parking lot. “Add the bike to our ever-growing to-do list.”

Jase gave a low whistle. “That’s a lot of cars.”

“Are you sure there’s nowhere else that might have roofing supplies?” I asked.

Clutch grimaced. “’
Fraid not.”

He pulled into an open area toward the back of the parking lot. If zeds came at us, the one thing we had on them was speed. Having the truck at a distance from the store could be a lifesaver when it came to putting space between us and hungry zeds.

We checked our gear and weapons. We left the Kevlar vests at home since they were heavy and zeds tended to go for the face or extremities. With the black Kevlar helmets and gloves, we looked like Special Forces, but I felt nothing like an experienced soldier.

Clutch looked at both of us. “All right, we’ve got to be smart about this. No fuck-ups. We get what we need, then we’re out of there. The other supplies in there aren’t worth the risk, not until we know the place is cleared out. We go in silent and we stick together. We know zeds hunt off their senses, so we move slow and silent. Always keep a direct line to the exit. If either of you screw up, I might decide to leave your ass behind. Got it?”

Both Jase and I nodded.

Clutch left the keys in the ignition in case we needed to make a quick getaway, or, worse, in case he didn’t leave the store with us. “Let’s do this. Exactly as I taught you. Follow my lead. Silence from here on out,” he said and opened the door.

I gripped the crowbar. We moved as a trio of dark-colored shapes slowly through the parking lot. I’d expected that we’d have to take out a couple zeds in the parking lot, but nothing emerged from around the cars. Not a good sign. Because the owners of those cars had to be somewhere.

We flattened against the wall on either side of the wide glass entrance, and Clutch bent around to scan the area. He frowned and led us down the sidewalk to the exit door. He scanned the interior longer this time before finally nodding. Forcing myself to breathe, I stepped next to Clutch, holding the crowbar up. The sliding door didn’t automatically open. Just as we’d expected, the power grid for the entire area was down. Clutch pulled at the door while I stood ready to knock back any zed that may attack. Jase stood at our backs, a rifle slung on his back and a long wood-handled axe in his hands.

Clutch pried the door open just enough for us to squeeze through one at a time. Clutch went in first. Once through, he crouched and flattened himself against one of the checkout counters. He held his machete out while he checked the area behind him.

When he gave us the
all-clear
, I went in next, moving exactly as Clutch had done. When Jase reached me, he tapped my left shoulder.
Ready.
I did the same to Clutch’s shoulder, just like how he’d made us practice.

Clutch moved to the edge of the counter and looked left and right. After making a quick hand motion, he crossed the aisle, keeping slow and low, until he flattened against the other side. I moved but abruptly pulled back when I saw
a zed in the aisle, sniffing at the air. Taking a breath, I waited until it faced the other direction, and I crossed the aisle. Jase followed.

We continued this process, avoiding zeds and following Clutch, as we moved deep into the belly of the store. For the number of cars outside, there were surprisingly few zeds meandering around, which made me wonder exactly where all the drivers to those cars had gone.

Clutch clearly frequented this store because he led us to the aisle we needed without any wrong turns or detours except to bypass zeds. I opened the duffel, and he slid in several heavy stacks of shingles. Jase stayed at my back and scanned the entire time.

“Uh, guys?” Jase whispered.

I glanced up to see a zed come around the corner and into our aisle. It’d been badly gnawed. One of its arms was nothing but white bone and stringy sinew. We didn’t move, hoping it wouldn’t see us.

We weren’t that lucky.

It only took a couple seconds for the zed to sniff the air and home in on us. It moaned and stumbled toward us.
It’s like a fucking bloodhound
, I thought to myself. Clutch stood, walked right up to it, and swung, his machete taking off the top of the zed’s head with a single powerful slice. The zed collapsed, and he caught the body just before it hit the floor and laid it down quietly.

He returned and grabbed the duffel as though nothing happened. On our way out, we nearly walked into a small group of zeds and were forced to backtrack. As we neared another aisle, Jase nudged me. “Look,” he whispered and pointed at a glass display case.

My mouth opened, and I tugged Clutch and then pointed.

He saw the display case, looked around, and then headed toward it. On proud display behind the glass was a little piece of heaven. Small camping axes, knives of all sizes, and the Cadillac—black machetes. While Clutch’s arsenal of rifles and pistols was impressive, he had few blades, with the exception of a machete and a wood axe, his blades were knives.