THEM (Book 0): Invasion (8 page)

As I threw the empty gas cans back in the bed of the truck, Dan tried to offer me money. “I feel bad about taking your gas, so at least let me pay you for it.” He pushed a couple of twenties at me that he’d pulled from a wallet full of credit cards.

I chuckled and waved him off. “For one, I don’t know if paper money is going to be worth anything to anyone before long. And second, this is on the house. My folks didn’t raise me to take money for doing a kind turn. You can pay me back by getting your family home safe and taking good care of that dog.”

He tilted his head and shook my hand. “Thanks, for everything. By the way, I never got your name.”

“Nope, you didn’t. It’s Aidan, Aidan Sullivan. Most folks call me Sully.”

One of the kids chimed in from the background. “Like the monster!” he exclaimed.

I snorted. “Just not blue and purple, but yeah.”

The kid looked at me askance and squinted his eyes in feigned consternation. Then he grinned and exclaimed, “Still a cool name, even if you don’t have purple fur.” Then he went right back to petting the dog.

About that time, the wind shifted and I heard the dog growl menacingly. She took up a protective stance between the kids and the shoulder of the road, her gaze fixated on the treeline. I listened carefully and could hear some low moaning coming from the trees and brush, so I kept an eye on the trees while I motioned at Dan. “Take the kids to the other side of the car, and keep your eyes peeled.”

I drew my Glock and started picking my way through the trees toward the moans.

I could smell them before I saw them. The stench was overpowering, and it was all I could do to avoid gagging and giving away my presence. I stalked forward a ways, crouched down and snuck further into the brush. Another twenty feet or so in, I saw three deaders milling about in a clearing. One was a middle-aged man in cowboy boots and a wife beater. The other two were kids.

Damn it.
I could shoot the old guy without hesitation, but could I shoot these two kids? The first one couldn’t have been much older than six, and he was wearing a Spongebob shirt, faded blue jeans, and a pair of Chuck Taylors. The second was a girl who was roughly ten years old, wearing bobby socks, scuffed patent leather oxfords, and a worn but serviceable light blue Sunday dress. Her pale blonde hair draped across her face as she jostled past her brother, gnashing her teeth as blood dribbled down her chin.

I looked past them and saw the source of the blood. Not ten feet beyond, an overweight middle-aged woman was sprawled face down on the ground, her guts and intestines fanned out around her. There was a shotgun and a scattering of shells on the ground beside where she had fallen, and I could see that the back of her head had been blown clean away. The girl noticed me and lunged, but she stumbled and fell. I noticed then that she had a sturdy length of climbing rope around her leg, as did the boy and the man. They were all leashed to the trees that surrounded a primitive campsite, which appeared to have been hastily assembled in the clearing before me.

It didn’t take long to deduce what had happened. One of the kids had probably gotten infected and turned, so the parents tied them up in the hopes that they’d get better. Then, someone else had gotten bit, maybe trying to care for the first one who had turned. Finally, another family member had gotten infected, and mom had been the last one left. Maybe she just couldn’t take it, or perhaps she had sacrificed herself to feed her kids. Either way, it was tragic as hell.

I didn’t have the heart to kill them, so I snuck back through the trees to where I’d left Dan and his family. I holstered my Glock before I walked over to them, and gave Dan and his wife a stern warning with my eyes that said,
Don’t go back there.
Dan’s wife nodded once, and then she told the kids to find something for the dog to eat.

I motioned Dan and his wife over to the cab of my truck and spoke so the kids wouldn’t hear. “Don’t ask me what I saw back there, because you don’t want to know. Now, are you two armed?”

Dan spoke up first. “No, we don’t believe in violence.” His wife remained silent, and watched me carefully. I reached inside the glove box and pulled out the revolver and the box of shells I’d gotten from the truck driver the day before, then I turned and offered them to the couple. Dan raised his hands in the air and backed away a half-step. “Oh, we don’t believe in guns. Please, put that away before the kids see it.”

His wife, on the other hand, grabbed the pistol out of my hands, snapped the cylinder open to see if it was loaded, checked the bore, and then dumped the rounds out in her hand. She spun the cylinder and snapped it back in, then aimed off into the distance and dry fired it once to see how it functioned. And for the first time since I’d arrived, her husband stood speechless while she calmly and expertly reloaded the pistol.

Sarah turned to him and frowned. “Oh Dan, don’t look so surprised. I grew up around guns, and quite frankly the kids are going to be around them a lot in the coming weeks after we get to my parent’s place. You might not want them in our house, but we can’t afford the luxury of pacifism anymore, not with everything that’s been going on.”

Dan stood there for a moment, stunned. Then, he lowered his head, resigned. “I suppose you’re right. I keep thinking the way I did before the bombs fell, even though I know things have changed, maybe permanently.” He turned to look at me. “Thanks, for everything.”

Sarah pocketed the pistol in the back of her mom jeans and held out her hand, making confident eye contact as she did so. “Yes, thank you, Sully. You might very well have saved our lives. If you’re ever out in Rocksprings, look us up. Sam and Nancy Greer are my parents, and their place is just northwest of Rocksprings on old Sonora Road. Just look for the Greer Kennel signs.”

“You’re welcome, and I will.” I tipped my baseball cap at them. “Dan. Sarah. Be safe.” As I turned to leave, one of the kids ran up and hugged me around my leg. It was their little girl.

“Thanks for the dog, Mr. Sully. We’re naming her Buttercup.” Then she ran back off to where her brother was playing with the dog. I smiled, but all I could think about was the pair of little deaders who were tied up just fifty feet away.

I shook it off as I hopped in my truck, speaking to the couple through the window. “Remember, north to 41 and take that west, and you should have smooth sailing.”

I waved and headed out, praying that they’d have a safe trip home.

SEVEN

SKIRMISHERS

WHILE I FELT GREAT about helping Dan and Sarah and their kids, I was facing a conundrum regarding my gas situation. I didn’t feel comfortable driving all the way to Austin without a few cans of gas in the back for emergencies, and that meant I’d need to gas up those cans pronto. Ingram looked like it was going to be my best bet, although with it being so close to I-10, I wasn’t so sure it’d have escaped the infection.

I figured I’d just play it by ear and check the gas stations first, then try to siphon from some cars if I couldn’t get it from the source. Cars seemed like the easier play, but I wanted speed over simplicity, since I’d be exposed the whole time I gassed up. Siphoning took a whole helluva lot longer than a gas pump, so if the power was on in Ingram I’d take my chances at a station.

I kept my rifle handy and made sure I had my trouble detector on full alert as I pulled into the little town.
Now, this is something strange
, I thought to myself as I rolled through the main drag. Not a soul in sight, anywhere. Huh. There wasn’t a deader to be seen, nor were there any people milling about or ducking behind curtains or cars or what have you to avoid notice.

It rattled my cage a little that it was so quiet, considering the local population was roughly four times that of Leakey, but I decided that I wouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. I circled the first gas station and convenience store I saw about three times slowly, checking inside and out for threats. Seeing nothing suspicious, I pulled up to the doors and parked so my truck door covered me in one direction, and the truck bed and camper would be covering me in another. Then I stepped out with my rifle to try the door, only to find it locked.
Shit.

My next step was to try to jimmy the doors open. I suspected it’d be easier to use a crowbar to pry the doors apart than it would to smash the glass. Most of these gas stations used hurricane-proof glass in the doors, to make it harder for smash and grab criminals to ply their trade. That also made it safer for the night crew, should they be open 24-7 and doing business through a banker’s drawer. I dug around behind the seat of the truck looking for my Fat Max demo tool, then I heard a voice behind me and to my left.

“There’s an easier way to get in, you know.”

I drew my sidearm and turned quickly, only to see a kid of about 11 or 12 years old staring at me from the other side of the truck window. He had a shock of unruly dirty blond hair and was wearing an old Army jacket, torn up jeans, and a pair of Doc Martens that had seen better days. I looked around to see if he was alone, but kept the pistol on him just the same. “Kind of dangerous, sneaking up on people like that.”

He chewed his lip and shrugged. “Yeah, I guess so. Haven’t seen too many people come through here, not since yesterday, anyway. I guess we’re a little out of the way.”

“You alone, kid?”

“You mean am I working with someone to distract you and steal all your stuff? No. Or, I guess yeah. Meaning I’m alone and not working with someone else.”

I gave the kid a raised eyebrow. “Hmm. Say I believe you‌—‌so where are your parents?”

He rolled his eyes. “Is this where you tell me I shouldn’t be out by myself, all alone during a zombie outbreak? Don’t worry, it hasn’t really reached us yet, so things are still pretty safe. Most people are staying indoors, working on nailing everything down. Or, they already left town.”

I nodded. “Fair enough. You still didn’t tell me where your parents are.”

The kid threw his hands in the air. “Fine. My dad was getting drunk, the last time I saw him. And my mom works in San Antonio. I don’t know when she’s going to be back.”

The words, “if at all” were implied in that statement. I nodded again. “Okay, I guess I’ll just take you at your word. Now, you mentioned there was an easier way to get in here. Do you folks still have power?”

“Yep. So far, although it’s been kind of fading in and out. Pumps still work though. I had to get some gas for my dad earlier. You just have to turn on one of the pumps from the inside.”

“Okay, so how about you go inside and turn on a pump for me?”

The kid screwed his face up. “Well, about that. I may have made it harder to get in there when I went in earlier.”

This time it was my turn to roll my eyes. “Seriously, kid? You’re not just scamming me?”

He snickered. “Man, you really aren’t the trusting sort. Here, I’ll show you.” He rolled under the car door and stood up next to me, then he banged on the door hard three times. Almost immediately, I heard the low moaning of two or three voices, and I saw figures shuffling from the back of the store towards the door. The kid grinned. “See, they were locked up in the back earlier, only I didn’t know it. I went in there looking for supplies, like cigarettes for my dad, real food for the house, stuff like that, because the owners moved all that stuff in the back before they locked it up. So, I accidentally let them out when I was looking around for stuff.”

I rubbed my chin for a minute, eyeing the deaders who were pawing at the glass and snapping their teeth at us. “How did you say you were getting in and out of this place again?”

The kid pointed up. “The roof. There’s an access ladder on the other side, and I found a way to get up there that nobody knows about. So long as no one sees me, the place is all mine right now.”

“Okay, so if I can go in there and kill these things, you think you can go inside and turn a pump on for me so I can gas up and be on my way?”

The kid crossed his arms and squinted. “What’s in it for me?”

Somehow, I knew he was going to say that. I pointed at the window. “Well, for starters your motherload is pretty much locked down right now, considering that those deaders in there aren’t going to take too kindly to you sneaking in and out of their home. I figure you’d make a pretty handy snack for one or all three of them. Doesn’t sound like the best option for a young enterprising man like yourself, to end up as chow for those freaks.” I paused for effect. “Or, I could take care of your zombie problem. I help you, you help me, your old man gets his cancer sticks, and everyone lives happily ever after.”

The kid acted like he was thinking about it for a moment, then he stuck out his hand. When I reached for it, he snatched it back. “Okay, but only on one condition.”

“Whatever you say, kid. Hit me with it.”

“All Hostess products are off limits when you go inside.”

I held out my hand. “Deal. Now, show me how to get up there.”