America The Dead Book Two: The Road To Somewhere (16 page)

“
Let's go, Man, before you get
sick from the cold. Me too. Then what good will we be? Come on;
let's go,” Ronnie said. He turned and walked away and Mike went
with him.

~

They slogged their way through the muddy field
and back to the area under the steel roof. The morning was half
gone. They were going nowhere today. Bob was working on a map
spread out on a wooden table top and held down with broken chunks
of cinder blocks. Ronnie walked over to him, and Mike
followed.

~

"Is this how sisters are?" Kate
asked.

"I don't know, I never had one," Patty said, "
I know I never had a friend like you though."

"I never have either. Or a man like Mike. Or a
life like this... I mean, we're all living a life that couldn't
even have been possible to live unless this had happened." She
shook her head slightly where it laid against Patty's shoulder.
Patty smoothed her hair away from her face and held her loosely
with one arm like a child.

"It's like that for me too. Ronnie
is... he isn't even the guy I knew before all this happened. We
weren't even interested in each other like that. I had no idea what
he was really like, and I never would have.“ She fixed her eyes on
Kate's own and held them. “Are you going to be
okay,
okay?” she asked.

"Yep," she sniffled, "If he... If he," her
voice hitched.

"I know, I know," Patty said.

“
It would've made me crazy, Patty.
It would have," Kate told her.

"Maybe, but not for long. You're too strong.
You would've gotten past it. Just like you'll get past this," Patty
told her.

"People say that, but how do you know it? How
do you know if you will or you won't?" Kate asked.

"It's in you. You're strong. That
guy took nothing at all that was really you. That can't be done,
you can't take something that really is you inside,
who
you really
are...
what
you
really are. I know. I got past it too. You'll get past it," Patty
said.

"You?" Kate turned into her and
looked up into Patty's eyes. "How?
What or
when?
" she asked? "If... if you want to
talk about it, that is."

"I was a little girl... my uncle.
He was living with us for awhile," her voice thickened. "I kept it
a secret. I didn't want anyone to know. He thought that meant I
would never tell. He did it again. My mother didn't believe me
until I described what he did...
made
me do. She went and woke him
up. That was one of the few times when my mother scared me. She
woke him up with a baseball bat in her hands. She never touched
him, but she told him she would be telling my father when he came
home from work and he better get out before she started in on him
herself."

"He started to deny it, called me a liar, and
she went ballistic. There was a lamp on the table; she smashed it
with the bat, all over the place. Just smacked it with the bat. And
she told him to say it again. He had nothing to say, just got up
and left."

"When she told my dad, he was crazy at first.
Then he came and got me and held me. What I had hoped that my
mother would do, but she hadn't. And he asked me what I wanted him
to do, and I told him to make him leave me alone. He promised me he
would, and he held me until I fell asleep."

"When I woke up the next morning, the cops were
talking to my mother about where my father had been the night
before. She told them he had been home all night. But, he'd left
Kate, put my uncle in the hospital. I never saw him again, and I
didn't feel bad that he got hurt. And I got over it. Maybe it
wasn't the best way for my family to have handled it, but I got
past it. And look, I have a good man... I have you as well. And,
you'll get over this. You will, I know you will, because you're
strong," she said. Her own eyes were leaking now. Kate scooted up,
folded her into her chest and held her.

"I will because I have you, and I have Mike.
I'm lucky to have so much," she said. She cradled Patty's head
against her chest and kissed her forehead.

"Jesus," Patty said, "Were both crying'
now."

Kate laughed, the first laugh she
had had in hours, "So what?” she said, "
so
what?
"

~Donita and the new boy~

The horses were not taking to being dead.
Instead of accepting it, they seemed to be doing everything they
could to actually be dead. Hers had run full speed into the side of
a barn. She had barely jumped free. She had no wish to be Un-Dead
and missing limbs.

She had let the horse wander on its own after
that, but it was clear it was not going to fall under her dominion
as they boys had done. It was a shame too. She was sure it would
work, and she could not understand why it hadn't. Possibly it was
the wrong horse. She had tried too hard, too soon, or maybe the
other horse would work out. But that horse dashed her hopes later
in the day when it simply wandered away and fell into the river.
She and the boy had watched the river water, but the horse did not
come back to the surface. No life she would want to have, eternally
drowning, walking the river bottom looking for a way back up to the
surface.

As darkness fell, she led the boy and herself
into a small town. They had been following the road most of the
day. The horse followed along at his own pace, far behind. His neck
broken, or so it seemed, cocked to one side, and he seemed unable
to lift it from where it hung close to the ground. The horse
wandered after them, eyes rolling, mouth foaming.

The town was empty, at least of people. She and
the new boy hunted rats for an hour or two after dusk. The rats had
done well for themselves: fat, sleek and gray... the size of a
small dog. They had gorged themselves. She had taken some to the
horse, but it hadn't seemed able or willing to partake.

She had left the horse to its own wanderings
and prowled the town with the new boy. The night made her feel
alive, strong, whole. The boy followed, and they hunted, killed for
the sake of killing, but it was good for the boy.

When morning came, there was not a stray cat,
dog or rat left alive in the small village, and she was crazy with
blood. They left the village, found an abandoned factory on the
outskirts, and made their way into the dark depths of the factory
as the sun began to rise. They found a spot under a massive, iron
machine that took up most of the ground floor, and crawled in as
twilight overtook them.

~

Bob looked up and smiled as Mike
came over. He had changed into dry clothes and had a cup of hot
coffee in his hand. His eyes betrayed the fact that he had had no
sleep yet, but his face was not quite so rigid and mask like as it
had been for the past several hours. Careful, was the word that
came to Bob's mind. The way he had been holding his face, set just
so...
Careful
,
Bob thought.

But whatever he'd done or faced, he seemed to
be on the other side of it. The whole camp was like that today, and
the rains just seemed to compound the depression that had settled
over them.

A ghost of a smile worked its way across Mike's
face."What you up to, Bob?" he asked.

"Working this out on the map, Mike. And as
close as I can figure, we have to be out of New York, and most of
the way through Pennsylvania. You said three hundred and fifty
miles?" he asked.

"Yeah, and a few tenths of a mile," Mike told
him.

"Well then, we're out of New York State for
sure and somewhere in Pennsylvania, and maybe even close to being
done with that as well. We got West Virginia, Kentucky and
Tennessee to go, but we'll drop into where we want to be somewhere
in Kentucky, then it's just a matter of direction. Down towards
Tennessee and Alabama or over towards the Carolinas and Georgia, or
up into Virginia. The best part of six states, and a good chunk of
the seventh which isn't part of the forever wild lands, but still
pretty much empty. As little as five hundred miles or as much as
seven hundred, depending on where we want to be."

"I'd bet that we are in the Catskills already,
maybe only the foothills, but we have to be in them. This rain is
just hiding the mountains from us. The Appalachians are the
backbone we'll follow down to the Smokies and the Blue Ridge, all
part of the Appalachians. We'll find those gaps in the Blue Ridge
mountains and again by the Smokies. It's just a matter of choice
then, where we want to go in," he finished.

Mike sipped at his coffee and nodded. "So, a
few days away," He said.

"At the most," Bob agreed.

"How's Arlene?" Mike asked.

"She's... She's shook up. Guilt. What the dirty
bastard made her do," Bob said, "David says she's sleeping on and
off. Sharon's been in to see her, so's Sandy. Just have to work it
through. How's Kate? And you?" Bob asked.

"Kate is with Patty. Those two love each other
better than sisters. It's what she needs right now. I think She'll
be fine... I just don't know when," Mike said.

Ronnie came back in dry clothes and a cup of
coffee of his own. "Bob, Mike," he said, "What's doing?"

"Bob's showing me our home... and I wish we
were there." He looked out at the gray skies, the falling
rain.

"Yeah," Ronnie said, “Janet asked if you want
something to eat. She said..." he trailed off. Mike looked at him.
"She says you should," he finished.

Mike nodded, "I will. I will. I guess I will
right now. I didn't realize I was even hungry.” He nodded. “Bob,
Ronnie, I'll be back in a bit." He walked away to where Janet stood
waiting. She embraced him, set him down at a make shift table and
then set a plate of food in front of him.

Ronnie watched for a minute and then turned to
Bob, "So, what were you showing him?" he asked.

"Well..." Bob began.

~

Several people found an excuse to stop by and
see how things were as Mike sat eating. Jeff, Sharon, Sandy and
Susan, Tim and Annie, Nell and Molly. Most were just going on or
coming off posts and had just stopped by to tell him they were
thinking of Kate and hoping she was all right.

"They been on post all night?" Mike asked Janet
Dove.

"They've switched on and off, Mike. But nobody
is expecting you to be there. What they are expecting you to do is
get our girl back on her feet. Me as well, Mike. Me as well," Janet
said. She looked out at the sky.

"Funny," she said after a few moments of
thought, "Used to be you could flip on the T.V. and have a pretty
good idea of how long the weather was going to last, or what was
coming next, for that matter. Now it just happens. Whatever it is
going to be, we'll find out soon enough," she said.

Mike had a feeling she had started out talking
about how the weather was and then veered off into something else.
"Bob thinks we're in Pennsylvania," Mike said, "Running through the
foothills of the Catskills. Which means that sometime yesterday
afternoon we had to have passed close to the city of Pittsburgh, or
Greensboro, and there's a river that we should have crossed there,
but we didn't cross one,” Mike finished.

"Things have changed, Mike. We might have
missed what was left of it in the rain. Or, maybe we've yet to come
to it. We don't really even know what side of the mountains we're
on, do we?" She asked.

"No," Mike admitted. "But it's not like we
could get completely lost. We should be able to find our way once
this rain lets up... and... and we're on our way again," he
said.

She patted his hand and then held it with one
of her own, "It'll pass," she said, "It'll pass."

Mike didn't know if she meant the rain or what
had happened. But they would both have to run their course, and he
believed they would.

As he was thinking, David and Arlene walked
over. Mike looked at her. Her eyes were swollen and her face was
too white, but it seemed composed nonetheless. "Arlene... I want to
thank you, Arlene. I..."

She let go of David's hand and reached out and
hugged Mike. Mike stopped talking, put his arms around her and
pulled her to him. She sat clumsily beside him, her head buried in
his shoulder. "I'm sorry," she said, “but I should have gotten
there sooner."

"Nonsense," Mike told her, "I don't even want
to think about what would have happened without you," Mike told
her.

"I had to," she said.

"Damn right," Mike said, "You had no choice.
But, it's going to be all right, Arlene. It's going to be all
right."

She pulled her head away from his chest and
looked at him. "You think?" she asked.

"I think," he said.

David and Arlene left and found their way over
to the table where Bob and Ronnie sat discussing the map and where
Bob intended that they should all end up.

Mike sat quietly, sipping coffee, watching as
Arlene became caught up in that conversation and some color began
to creep back into her face. Good, he thought. A hand fell lightly
upon his shoulder as he sat thinking. He turned around to find
Patty standing behind him.