Fire Birds (37 page)

Somerville and I waited quietly on the front porch for Gail to change. The shirt was a little big on her, but she tied it at the bottom to make it fit better. The front of the house faced 9th Street. We followed it toward the grain bins.

“What the hell?” Somerville said as we drew near the wrecked van. “Corn? There was all that corn in there this whole time?”

“Looks like it,” I said.

“Well, hell, there’s enough food there for an army.”

That statement brought to my memory Bruce’s story about finding the trailer full of MREs. It made me sick that we’d never know where that was.

“Tim and Laney are in here,” I said. “This red house.”

We went up on the porch, and I knocked. “Laney? Laney, it’s us; don’t shoot.”

The front door opened, and Laney met us with a gun in her hand. Behind her Tim was sitting up holding a bandage on his arm.

Laney said to Gail, “When did you change your blouse? Have you been crying?”

Gail looked back at us with a worried expression.

“He won’t notice,” Somerville said.

“I’m going to go get Dan and one of those trucks,” I said. “You get Tim ready to move.”

I ran down the road and stopped at the black Suburban that had chased us. I put the AA-12 into the back of the vehicle then Bruce’s heavy messenger bag.

“Dan!” I yelled. “Dan, come down!”

I climbed into the van through the rear door then I set the gray tote out. By the time I was loading the tote into the Suburban, Dan was walking toward me.

“What’s going on?” he said.

“We’re leaving,” I said. “The men are dead.”

“Where are the others? Are they okay?”

“They’re in the red house over there,” I said. I didn’t tell him about Andrew.

“So that’s it? That wasn’t so bad.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Easy friggin peasy.”

“We should get this corn,” he said.

“Maybe, but not right now. The dead are gathering in, and Tim is hurt. We should move him.”

“Whoa!” Dan said. “Look at that!”

He was looking to the sky. I looked up to see an aircraft coming over. The front section where the cockpit would have been was bulbous. The fuselage was thin. It had struts similar to some of the small craft at the Grace County Airport. It looked like a cross between a crop duster and a bug.

“Shit,” I said. “What’s that doing here?”

We rushed back to the red house in the pickup. Dan ran in and hurried the others out. He, Gail, and Nicholas climbed into the back seat. Tim and Laney got up front with me.

“What are they doing here, Tim?!” I yelled as I pulled away and took a left onto North Street.

“You called them,” he replied. “I told you not to.”

“Called them?” Somerville said.

“An hour minimum! That’s what you said. An hour! It hasn’t been an hour. I didn’t even get the damn thing activated!”

“You must have,” he said. “Maybe it’s not for here. Maybe they’re on their way to somewhere else.”

“Really?”

“Probably not.”

“What is going on?” Dan said. “Where’s the pastor?”

A large mass of the undead were moving up North Street as we came to the intersection with 8th Street forcing me to take a right.

“We need to put a lot of space between us and that car,” Tim said.

“I’m trying to do that!”

I got to the intersection with Broadway and looked to my right. We were two blocks from the tracks, the lumberyard, and the warehouse where Andrew and Bruce Lee had died. The Firebird was mostly blocked from my view, but the crowd of zombies it had attracted extended out in a wide circle.

“There it is,” Gail said. “I see the airplane.”

A streak of white came out of the sky. The Firebird hopped into the air, flames venting from its windows. Scores of bodies sailed up and outward on the swiftly expanding inferno. The hot shockwave rolled into us and shoved us sideways. The creatures that were not instantly consumed or knocked down, stumbled around in the fiery street like walking torches. The lumberyard and bus station burned. The warehouse containing Pastor Andrew’s body had partially collapsed.

Everyone was silent. We could hear the roar and crackle of the fire from our location two blocks away.

Finally Somerville spoke. “So…so you called them?”

For them, the loss of Pastor Andrew overshadowed everything else, including the drone attacks and Sara’s death. The pastor was dear to them, and I could sympathize, but I had not yet had an opportunity to mourn for Sara. I wanted them to mourn for her too. There was no reason why they would–they didn’t know her–but I was angry that she got so little attention from them. It was possible that Grant was going through more heartache than I, but I couldn’t bring myself to see him. He stayed in the bedroom and wouldn’t come out. I sat with them all that afternoon while they cried and read passages from the Bible. In all of it, I felt left out, like I didn’t belong. I’m sure Somerville felt the same way, but he didn’t let on.

As could be expected, there was a telling and retelling of the events of the day. They tried to make sense of it and figure out if anything could have been done differently. Accusations were never made, but I knew some of them blamed me.

I didn’t want to fight anymore. I didn’t want to argue. I didn’t even want to feel angry. I thought the best way to avoid all of that would be to get away from the others for a while. If we stayed in the area, I wouldn’t be able to avoid them indefinitely, but I had to have some time alone. Even so, I knew I would need them eventually.

There was no more talk of them securing and preserving the town. They had seen downtown Clayfield the same as I. The next day, after some discussion, they all packed up and moved back to the airport, even Nicholas Somerville. Cheryl invited me to join them, but I declined for the time being. I stayed with the Lassiter farm because it was familiar, but I didn’t plan to live there forever. There were too many ghosts there. Eventually, I would move my supplies and livestock to another location and start again.

I was alone for more than a week before I saw any of them again.

Then one afternoon, two pickup trucks stopped in the road in front of the property. One was pulling a flatbed trailer, to which was strapped an Amish buggy. The other pulled a long livestock trailer. The door opened on the one in front and Nicholas Somerville got out. He opened the gate. I went out on the porch to watch.

They drove the two trucks in and parked. Somerville got out and waved. Cheryl got out of the second truck. I went out to meet them.

“We’ve been worried about you,” Cheryl said.

“No need,” I said.

Somerville extended his hand, and I shook it.

“I’m leaving tomorrow,” he said. “I wanted to say bye just in case I don’t see you again.”

“Biloxi? I kind of thought you would have already gone.”

“Not without saying goodbye. Anyway, Dan and I had to drive up to Riverton to get fuel for the plane, and Grant wasn’t feeling up to the trip until now. Barring any trouble, I should be back in less than a week with Judy.”

“Good,” I said.

Then he turned and pointed at the buggy. “We brought you some presents.”

I looked at the buggy and nodded, unsure what to say.

“We’re trying to make amends,” Cheryl said.

“You haven’t done anything to make amends for,” I said. “Neither one of you have.”

“You shouldn’t be out here by yourself,” Somerville said gently. “It’s dangerous, but more than that, it’s lonely. You’ll go crazy if you keep to yourself too much.”

“I think that’s happened already,” I said.

He sighed and looked at Cheryl then back at me. “Well, anyway, we brought you a buggy. Dan and Tim took a couple more of these over to the airport. It won’t be long before the cars won’t work no more, so–”

“I appreciate that,” I said, “but I don’t know how to operate one of those. Besides, I would think they wouldn’t offer much protection from the dead.”

“The dead will be gone by winter, hon,” Cheryl said. “What then? Are you going to walk everywhere? Everything sure is spread out and far away when you ain’t got a car to get you there. And what if you need to carry a load of something for a distance? You’ll need a wagon like this.”

I shrugged, “Okay. Let’s unload it. Wouldn’t hurt to have it, I guess.”

“I’ll back the trailer over there and we’ll unload it by the barn,” Nicholas said and got into the truck.

“There’s more,” Cheryl grinned and took my hand. She led me to the back of the livestock trailer. “Have a look.”

I peered inside. There were two more horses and four goats. In the front of the trailer, secured in the storage was a cage holding three chickens, including a rooster.

“You’ve been busy,” I said.

“We all went out to the Amish community today,” she said. “This is some of what we were able to save. We’re going to leave one of these horses with you. We figure they have experience pulling a wagon, so it might be easier for you if the horse knows what it’s doing. We’ll take that gray horse with us. You can have one of these goats and all of the chickens. We have more.”

“Okay,” I said.

She stood there and stared at me a moment. “Or,” she said, “you could just come out to the airport with us. There’s room. There’s electricity. Everyone wants you to join us.”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “Not right now.”

She took my hands in hers, “I want you to join us. Nicholas is right. This life is lonely enough without closing yourself off from everybody. I just want you to know that I’m your friend.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I know.”

“Tim, Laney, Dan, and Gail are going out on a double date this evening,” she said. “I would have gone with Nicholas, but he’s a married man. Grant’s a handsome kid, but I ain’t no cougar. I’m almost old enough to be his momma.”

I stared at her.

“My last date was more than a year ago,” she continued. “He was a farmer. Our date was to his elderly mother’s house. We had ham soup, we watched a made-for-TV movie with his mom between us on the couch, and then I drove myself home.”

“Sounds romantic,” I said.

She grinned, “Why are you making me fish so hard? I want you to get away from this place for a while. It’ll be two friends going out. How does that sound? No pressure.”

“No pressure? How am I supposed to make restaurant reservations?”

“That’s all covered,” she said. “Do you know what today is?”

“Wednesday…no…maybe Friday.”

“This is the Fourth of July, and we’re all going to have a picnic and watch the fireworks.”

“The Fourth? Are you sure?”

“Close enough,” she said. “Tim explained about the transponders. We all talked about it, and we’ve decided to get some use out of them. Dan, Tim, and Nicholas drove out yesterday and set off sirens west and north out of town to draw the monsters. They also left behind the transponders. In a couple of hours, Tim is going to activate them. Then we’ll wait for the show.”

I nodded and grinned, “It’s a date then.”

“Y’all ready to unload this buggy or what?” Somerville called to us.

I turned to help Nicholas, and Cheryl said, “It wouldn’t hurt to have a bath and run a comb through your hair.”

I pulled up in front of the Hill Hotel a half hour before sunset. The building had not been a hotel in decades but had been converted into office space. There were four vehicles parked around the building that hadn’t been there before–one by each of the three exits and another parked beneath a window. The building was blackened by the fire, and all of the glass from the windows was gone, but it was still structurally sound.

The first thing I noticed when I got out of my truck was the lack of zombies in the town. I only saw one–a child–and it was a street over. The next thing I noticed was the sound of the sirens. They were far away but clearly audible.

“There you are,” a voice said from above.

I looked up, and Cheryl waved to me from the roof of the old hotel. Dan leaned over the edge and waved too.

“Come on up,” he said. “We’ve got cold beer.”

I returned the wave then leaned back in the car for the orange daylilies I’d brought for Cheryl. I felt nervous to see everyone again. I entered the building and found the stairs. There was a little fire damage on the inside, and there was glass all over the floor. I climbed up the six floors, and Cheryl met me at the roof access. She put a cold Samuel Adams in my hand.

“Wow,” she said. “Nice duds, and you smell good too.”

“Brumming’s Fashions had some good-looking suits,” I said. “The sales person was a pest. After I put a hatchet in his head, I noticed this pinstripe. It looked sharp on the mannequin. I figured what the hell.”

“What the hell is right,” she said. “And here I am in my Wal-Mart clothes.”

“You look nice,” I said.

“Those for me?” she said.

I nodded and handed her the flowers.