Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse (Book 2): Conflict (36 page)

*
* *

“Mary’s
coming.”

“What
was that?” I asked.

Tara’s
ride was proving as uncomfortable as I feared. She was jammed into a tiny space
in the rear of the Jeep, and while her backside was cushioned by the foam
mattress, the rest of her was constantly jostling against boxes, crates, or
bare steel.

“Mary’s
coming,” she repeated, more loudly.

That
wasn’t possible.

“Mary’s
back at the castle.”

“She’s
coming. I can see her.”

I turned
the wheel slightly to the left, giving me a better view of the road behind us
in the side mirror. The lady was correct. Mary was indeed following, a good two
miles back, on a piece of crap motor scooter. Where did she learn to ride one?
Where did she find it for that matter? At least she was wearing a helmet, one
that lacked a face plate. I wondered how many bugs she’d swallowed thus far.

“Let’s
see what she wants.”

I pulled
over and got out with Tara quickly following suit. She took the opportunity to
stretch her legs, but neither she nor Dale said anything. They just stood
there, waiting for Mary to reach us.

“Hello
everyone.” The fourteen year old sounded cheerful, and confident.

“Mary, I
seem to recall telling you, several times, that you were not coming along.”

She
removed the helmet and began to fluff her hair with one hand. “I know, but you
were wrong with that. You need me.”

“No, I
do not, and I’m not so cruel as to be taking a little girl out to face the
raiders.” I emphasized the words little girl. It might have her grumbling,
possibly hurt, but at that moment I did not care. “Does anyone know you’re
here? Or are they out searching, hoping you hadn’t fallen into a hole or gotten
eaten by a zombie?”

“Please,
like I’m that stupid.”

The fact
she was riding the most unsteady, suicidal machine ever created, excluding a
Yugo – I wonder if any of those still existed – had me thinking otherwise.

“I left
Briana a note,” she continued, “so nobody will be worried.”

“Briana
will be worried,” said Tara, “and mad.”

Dale
nodded.

“Mad
doesn’t even begin to describe it. Mary, you do realize that Briana is going to
kill you?”

“Nah,
she wouldn’t kill me.” The teenager leaned up against the side of my Jeep. Her
legs looked to be somewhat wobbly, probably from spending the past few hours on
her little death trap. “Briana’s too nice.”

“Not so
nice that she won’t tell Lizzy.”

Mary’s
face lost the smug expression. Her sister’s longtime girlfriend had spanked her
before, not giving a damn how old or mature the girl might be. It took a lot
for Lizzy to resort to physical discipline, but if it happened, the woman would
not hold back.

“I’ll
worry about that later, and you’ll tell her I was important, on the radio,
before we get back, so she has time to calm down.”

I felt
my blood pressure rising. “There’s still the entire thing about you not being
important. After we get to the fire station, I’m handing you off to our people.
You’ll be going back on the next run.”

“But you
need me!”

Tara
retrieved her rifle and nailed a zombie in the head. It was about two hundred
yards out. Other than pausing for a second or two to glance in its direction,
neither of us paid much attention.

“You
need me Jacob,” she pressed. “You’ll be shooting your sniper rifle, and Tara
and Dale have theirs. They’ll be shooting too. Right?”

“That’s
the plan.” She was about to make a point. It was going to be a good point. It
was going to be connected to something I’d missed. Mary had the look she gave
me every time that happened. “It’s simple, straightforward, and solid.”

“Then
who’s going to watch your back while you’re fighting?”

There it
was, and I’d always been so very careful, to the point of obsession, of having
someone keep a lookout. How had I neglected it this time?

“See
Jacob, you need me to make sure nothing comes up from behind and to point out
targets, like Lizzy did the last time. That way you three can do the shooting
and not be all distracted and stuff.”

I looked
over at the twins. They stared at each other. I shifted my gaze back to Mary.
The confident expression had returned.

“Can you
drive that thing the rest of the way to the fire station?”

Her
perpetual grin was back with a vengeance. “Sure can.”

“Tara,
Dale, you have a new standing order. Under no circumstances is Mary to be taken
alive by the raiders.”

“You
don’t have to worry,” said Mary. “They won’t get anywhere near me, not if I’m
with you.”

“I hope
so darling, I really do, because we will put a bullet in you ourselves before
we let that happen.”

*
* *

“Thanks
for the extra guns.”

I nodded
at Jenny, but my mind was elsewhere. Why was I letting Mary tag along? The
twins didn’t seem to mind, but there wasn’t much that ruffled those two. Or,
they might be thinking how useful she was. Tara and Dale were pragmatic, and
Mary had proven herself time and time again as an excellent support person,
especially when it came to keeping watch. Mary was careful and diligent and
always paid attention when it mattered. She was also fourteen years old, barely
fourteen at that. I should send her back, I really should, but I wasn’t going
to. Mary would be useful. Damn it! What was wrong with my decision making process?

“Where
do we need to go to meet up with your militia units?”

“There’s
some training over here.” She marked the spot on our map with a red pen.
“That’s one of the bigger ranches. It has a runway, and some of the planes are
kept there.”

“When do
we get our helicopter?” asked Mary.

Jenny
shrugged. “Don’t know. There’s a pilot coming with the farmers and people who
want to go to Nebraska to wait it out.”

“As long
as we get one,” I muttered, mostly to myself.

Mary
moved to fill in the slack I was creating with my moodiness. I should have been
appreciative, but I kept alternating between wanting to shoot myself for
putting the needs of the settlement over this girl’s safety and wanting to find
some raiders so I could take out my frustration on them.

“Where
are the raiders now?” she asked.

This
time Jenny moved to a much larger map mounted on the wall, gesturing with a
laser pointer as she gave us the rundown. The ones moving on Yellowstone
weren’t a worry. That was rugged terrain, heavily forested, and vast. There
were huge tracts of land that could only be reached by going cross country, no
roads, not even any proper trails. The people living there would be able to
hide. They might even be able to kill them with ambushes and sneak attacks from
the hills and cliffs, if they could lure the prophet’s men into a trap.

Yellowstone
National Park was considered so secure that there were more people going there
than wanted to join us in Nebraska. That worked out for all of us. The refugees
would be among their own, and most were geographically closer to their
families. Also, from what Jenny told us, only a small proportion of those
joining us were doing so because they outright wanted to relocate to the hidden
settlement. Quite a few intended to stay at the castle, away from the fighting,
before going home.

“How
many are there? Still the same numbers?”

“Far as
I know,” she replied.

“What
about guns? Do they have machine guns? What about tanks?”

“No to
the tanks Mary. Yes to machine guns.”

A tank
would be nice, if we could get it to work. Maybe we would find one at the air
force base up by the Black Hills when we got around to checking it out.
Artillery that could pepper the valley leading to ours would be good too. I’d
have to look into building some machine gun nests.

“Most
are on motorcycles,” added Jenny.

You got
better gas mileage with those, in general, and with gasoline becoming harder
and harder to come by, it was the best way to proceed. Of course, we had
checked all the gas stations near us and planned on pumping their contents into
tankers which we would move to the Black Hills. That should cover us for years
to come. Siphoning from cars as we went was what was really getting difficult.
Most in our vicinity were dry, as were the ones in Wyoming. Fortunately, we
could resupply at the ranches.

“Some
are in trucks or vans. They have a few tractor trailers too, but not many.”

“Have
your airplanes been able to do anything?” I asked. “Other than just watching?”

Jenny
shook her head. “They mostly keep an eye on their movements. One of our
helicopters has some guns bolted to the sides. People sitting inside can use
them to shoot anyone on the ground. I heard they tried to use it against the
big group, but all four gunners were lost. The helicopter was shot up too. It’s
being fixed now, I think. I know it made it back without crashing.”

Damn
military, or politicians, whoever, whatever. They should have sent help to Salt
Lake City when it started. Yes, I can understand their focus on securing the
islands as a safe place to rebuild, but there were fifty thousand people in
Utah. The majority had made it out, true, but they were now scattered
throughout the west, probably surviving day by day. A lot wouldn’t make it. All
of this could have been avoided.

“Do you
have any chocolate? That’s a key supply you know. You should give us some since
Jacob and the twins are going to kill all the raiders.”

“I don’t
think we can kill all of them by ourselves,” I corrected.

“A few
hundred then,” amended Mary.

What would
killing several hundred people… correction, raiders, do to my emotional state?
I was feeling pretty damned miserable as it was, but it undoubtedly could get
worse. Although, that might just cheer me up.

“We
don’t have much in the way of candy,” said Jenny.

“Don’t
worry about it,” I replied. “Save whatever you have for the kids.”

I know
for a fact that Mary filled a sack when we were in Custer. I also knew she had
plenty of leftovers in her backpack. One of the first things I did after
agreeing to let her tag along was to make her open it up so I could see what
weapons and supplies she’d brought with her. Mary was equipped with a pair of
9mm automatics and an Uzi. She also had high end binoculars, night vision
goggles, and an iPod. That last wasn’t exactly practical, but seeing how I
still carried mine around I really couldn’t comment.

“We’ll
cut over to the Myers ranch first, then head to where they’re training. We
should give our condolences on Mr. Myers dying and let them know that Tim is
doing fine.

Mary
frowned at the mention of the other teenager, but it was fleeting.

*
* *

“I think
I should get to lie down on the mattress.”

“You’re
navigating.”

“But
it’s not fair,” protested Mary.

“Doesn’t
matter.”

“Let
Dale navigate. Me and Tara can relax. You’re discriminating against one half of
the women here, you know.”

“Mary,
while I like your creative attempt to sway me, if I did that it would be
discrimination against one hundred percent of the men instead.”

“Women
are superior,” she grumbled. “We should get the good stuff.”

She
sounded eerily like Briana at times.

“They
can get out the rear doors in a heartbeat, even if they’re lying there like
that. You can’t.”

We’d
tested that early on, back before I allowed them to install the mattress. I’m
not sure how they managed it, but both could get in or out just as quickly as
with a regular seat, and that was with weapons in hand. Since it didn’t affect
their ability to react, I saw no reasons why they shouldn’t enjoy the comfort.
Mary had tried to copy them but with no success. I gave up after falling on my
face twice in a row.

“How
close are we?”

She
checked the map. “About forty miles. We would have been there already if we
hadn’t cut so far south.”

“Alan
Myers asked us to deliver some messages. It was only a little out of our way,
and we get to see more ranches for ourselves. That’s always good.”

“I
guess.” She shifted in her seat. “You should pull over.”

“And
why’s that?”

“So I
can relieve myself.”

Her
voice was strained. Mary would get over the embarrassment of saying she had to
use the toilet as she got older. We all did.

“Can’t
you hold it?”

She
hunched her shoulders. “No, and you need to stop right away.”