“Elaine, can you get the kit from the other car please?” Mom asked.
Elaine didn’t say anything but she ran towards the other car to get what was requested. I looked around and I saw Billy he was visibly shaking, trembling as he reloaded his rifle’s magazines as quickly as he could. I went over to him and started doing the same thing. The crazies might be back at any moment, we had to be ready. I looked in the box of Remington .22 hollow points and realized that in 48 hours we had gone through more than half of our supply. Well, nothing to be done for that right now, I started to look around the camp site.
“LUCY!” I called and she ran over to me; Ronald Bear safely in her arms.
“Yeah Johnny?” she asked, no silliness, no rhymes, or songs.
At this moment in time, this little girl was all business.
“Lucy, can you go and pick up Tucker’s guns and bring them over here by us? Don’t worry Billy and I will watch out for you.”
Lucy didn’t smile she just turned and ran towards the corpse covered hillside. It took her a minute but she found both Colts then she dragged the long Moisan rifle over as well. Elaine came over by us, her face smudged with blood laced dirt. She had a big plastic tub, the one we kept in the blue SUV with half of our ammunition. She emptied the spent shells from her Nagant and reloaded it. Without being asked Lucy fetched both Mom’s and Mrs. Driscol’s Lebel rifles. Then she began to scour the ground for the empty clips.
After we were rearmed, Billy, Lucy and I kept watch and Elaine gathered more firewood. We would only steal glances at Old Man Tucker on the ground. He looked like some sea creature stranded on a beach somewhere. His skin looked orange because of the reflection of the flickering firelight; it was obvious that he was pale from loss of blood and I knew that up till then he didn’t spend a lot of time outdoors. Mom and Mrs. Driscol had dabbed the wounds dry and had used some pre-threaded sutures to close the wound on his biceps and also on top of right shoulder. Then they cleaned everything again and rubbed it down with triple antibiotic cream. She was able to get two antibiotic tables down his throat by putting the capsules far back on his tongue his gently pouring water into his mouth so that he would respond by swallowing.
Day 6, Pollard’s Camp Grounds
The sun began to rise on the Eastern horizon and we could see just how bad off he was. He still had not regained consciousness and he was developing a tremendous fever. His chest hair looked red and silver in the morning sun, his beard slowly filling out for the last few days now looked grey almost white, just like Santa’s except not. Mrs. Driscol and Mom talked with Elaine and then they met with us.
“We can’t stay here, we have to go on. We will let Mrs. Driscol and Billy drive the lead SUV, the rest of us will follow in the second. Elaine and Lucy can take care of Mr. Tucker as best they can and Johnny you can ride shotgun.”
We all nodded and got to work, we laid down the third row seat in the grey SUV. We placed a box on the floor so that we could put Old Man Tucker’s head on a pillow and stretch him out as much as possible. Lucy and Elaine would sit on either side of him in the middle row. We took the empty bucket because we discovered that the wounds were festering and needed to be cleaned out every few hours. They smelled disgusting, yellow oozing pus, filled with blood and strange blister like things that were filled with black goo; like a black head gone wild. Elaine would burst them with a needle, express the contents, and then rinse everything with alcohol or hydrogen peroxide. As we left the camp the bodies of the crazies were beginning to bloat in the sun, clouds of deer flies swarmed over them. I wanted to get far away from them as possible; we all did.
We drove on heading towards the junction with highway 9. Mom and Elaine kept talking, and Old Man Tucker just got sicker. His fever grew and beads of sweat appeared all over him, the hair on his body lay flat and his skin glistened. Wounds would swell and reopen, undoing all of their healing efforts. Old Man Tucker mumbled but didn’t make much sense.
“What is he saying?” Mom asked.
“I don’t know Elaine answered, “But I think he is talking to his wife.”
Lucy looked uncomfortable then said
“Mom, can we open the window, Mr. Tucker doesn’t smell very good.”
Mom didn’t answer but the two rear windows descended and stopped around half way down. The air helped the environment considerably and Elaine exhaled a huge breath, having held it because of the odor of rot, the smell of death. Elaine was wringing water out of a strip of white tee-shirt that they were using to wash him down when Lucy leaned forward and listened carefully to Old Man Tucker, her brows were knit together in concentration. She whispered
“I think he is asking her to sing something.”
After a few moments Lucy decided to meet his request and she leaned close and softly began to sing to Old Man Tucker. I don’t know if “wheels on the bus” was exactly what Old Man Tucker had been asking his wife to sing but it seemed to make him a little bit less frantic. We stopped sometime later and had lunch and took a bio-break. Mrs. Driscol checked in on Old Man Tucker and Billy and I got a few minutes to talk, I offered to switch vehicles with him but he declined. Mom and Mrs. Driscol were talking, then they got the map out and consulted it. Right where our highway intersected Highway 9 there were several truck stops and a number of hotels and motels. They decided they would check it out then try to find some remote room in one of the hotels and camp for the night. If they didn’t see something pretty much right away they were going to just go a few miles on and then pull off in to the woods to make camp.
“He isn’t looking very well Mom,” Elaine whispered as we approached the intersection with Highway 9, “and I am pretty sure he is delirious, he’s talking to his wife again; he is begging her not to leave.”
Lucy quietly sobbed I don’t think she liked seeing Mr. Tucker like this. Mom looked over her shoulder,
“Honey, please try not to listen to him, he is very sick and a fever like his will make people say all sorts of crazy...”
Mom’s voice trailed away at the word crazy, I know she was going to say “things” but just the thought that he might be turning into a crazy was almost too much to bear. I looked out the window not wanting to think about it either and Mom pulled the car to a stop, the other SUV pulled up next to us and the window went down, Billy’s goofy smile beamed at us,
“We made it.” he said, clearly relieved.
Mrs. Driscol asked about Mr. Tucker and Mom said there was no change. Then Mrs. Driscol asked what we thought about up ahead and Mom said that she didn’t know. The two Moms turned off their engines and got out to have what Mom called a ‘confab’. After a few minutes Mrs. Driscol got Billy and everyone gathered at our car,
“Mr. Tucker needs medicine and he needs rest.” Mom said.
Mrs. Driscol pointed off in the distance and said
“There is a Super-Mart just past the 77 Truck Stop and I think there will be a pharmacy in there.”
We stared at the distant building, it loomed large and foreboding. We looked at each other and Mom had just started to say something about splitting up when Elaine spoke up, quietly but firmly
“I’ll check it out.”
Mom responded “No! No way, you are just too young.”
Elaine looked at her a fierce determination on her face.
“Mom, you aren’t thinking clearly.”
Mom started to say something about how she was not to speak to her in that manner but Elaine continued.
“You and Mrs. Driscol have to drive; Mr. Tucker is out of it. Lucy can’t go.”
Lucy made a grunt of annoyance so Elaine added
“She is too important and has to take care of Mr. Tucker and Robert Bear.”
This seemed to placate her a bit.
“Billy and Johnny, they are the shooters; they are the only ones with halfway modern weapons.”
She paused for effect then added the conclusion to her argument:
“That leaves me.”
It looked like Mom was going to cry when Mrs. Driscol said softly
“Sharon, she’s right. What we can do is this. You, Johnny and Lucy stay here with Mr. Tucker. ’ll drive Billy and Elaine down to the right of the building, it looks like the grocery section and the pharmacy should be close to that.”
Mom looked in the indicated direction. Elaine continued
“Then I can hop out and make my way inside, Billy can pop out the sun roof to cover me.”
Then of all things Lucy said
“And Billy’s Mom can honk her horn if she needs me and Ronald Bear and you can drive us down there zoooooom and we can rescue everyone.”
We all stared at her and then she added
“And then we can have pie.”
I thought Mom was going to cry and she looked at us
“It’s not fair to gang up on me like that.”
She waited a second then said
“Well, it’s like my Dad used to say:
it’s a plan, not a good one, but it’s a plan
.”
Elaine grinned and we started to make preparations. Mom and Mrs. Driscol were making a list of all the antibiotics they could think of; Billy and I stayed near Elaine while she checked her weapons. She had the 7-shooter and one of the Lebel carbines. I offered her my rifle or Mr. Tuckers but she shook her head no, she was used to the Lebel and didn’t figure it was time to start learning a new one. But I did force her to shove my .22 revolver into her belt,
“It works just like yours” I said. “It can be your backup.”
Elaine looked at me and gave me a hug; she said “you’re a jerk you know that?”
I smiled at her and answered “takes one to know one.”
I hugged her back and Billy said
“You guys are weird you know that?”
Elaine chuckled “it’s a brother-sister thing Billy” and she ruffled my hair.
“It’s time to go kids” Mrs. Driscol said and Elaine and Billy headed towards their vehicle.
Mom and I sat in the front seats of our SUV. Lucy was talking to Old Man Tucker; I didn’t know which one was making less sense so I left them to it. We watched Mrs. Driscol slowly drive down the road, her lights were off and car seemed to almost vanish in the gathering dark. Mom reached over and squeezed my hand when the brake lights on Driscol’s car came on, then the dome light and we could see Elaine emerge and then everything went dark again when she shut the door.
Elaine grasped her rifle; she was trembling regardless of her outward bravado. She found her mouth felt like it was full of cotton and she felt like her eyes were rattling in her sockets. She tried to swallow but there wasn’t enough spit in her mouth so she just moved quickly as she could to lean against the wall. She looked back at the Driscols’; little Billy stuck to the plan and she could see that he was standing on the back seat, holding his rifle in his hands. She had to smile; that was one brave little guy and so was Johnny if she admitted to herself the truth. She could feel Billy’s eyes on her so she nodded to him then peeked around the corner, the building was dark and the racks of clothes and displays of various things on sale seemed to have a life of their own.
She turned on her flashlight and scanned it quickly around the entrance but there was nothing out of the ordinary. She clicked off her light and moved across the glass wall to the doors. She carefully grasped the handle and gave it a pull. Locked; “
Damn it
” she thought. She looked around and the rows of carts lined up to one side caught her attention. There was a rolling door, like on a garage that was probably intended to keep homeless people from walking off with the carts. She turned and ran back the way she came and turned the corner. She looked at the huge door; there were Plexiglas panels to let in light. She flicked on her light for just a moment and looked at the sides just inside the door; there, she saw it, a long length of chain that hung from somewhere high in the ceiling. She knew they used the chain to raise and lower the door. She went over to that side and using the butt of the venerable old rifle she bashed in the panel nearest to the chain. She flicked her light on briefly again and looked inside but still there was no movement or sign of anyone inside. She reached inside and grasped the chain; it was hard to manage so she slipped her rifle over her shoulder and then used both hands to pull the chain through the ruined window as far as she could. She prayed there wasn’t a locking pin or if there was the last person hadn’t set it.
She pulled and pulled and she heard the door creak and complain as it slowly was lifted from the ground. Eventually the open panel was lifted about a foot from the ground but she couldn’t move the door anymore. She looked down; she thought that the door was high enough that she could slip under. She took her rifle off her shoulder and lay on the concrete floor; she slithered her way under the door and she was in. She exhaled and caught her breath then started to the internal doors. She could see that these were still slide wide open; ‘
no survivors
’ she thought. If there had been they would have certainly pulled these doors shut for the extra layer of protection. The building seemed immense; she walked slowly along the front of the store, past the restrooms, past the customer service counter, past the tiny
Woolstone Credit Union
that was built into the store. She reached the pharmacy and stomped her foot in frustration, there was a chain link screen that was pulled all around it.