I awoke well before sunup, left a note for Kelly, and hurried to the church. Everyone was still asleep, even the guards, with one exception. Hillbilly. I found him in the kitchen area.
“Good morning.”
“Good morning,” he replied. “Where’s your family?”
“I let them sleep in. I imagine they’ll be here in about an hour or so.” I thought about Janet. She’d not yet met Hillbilly and wondered how she was going to act once she did.
“I took the liberty of looking over the kitchen and I have some coffee percolating on that fancy wood stove made out of scrap metal. Who made that?”
“You’d be surprised. Tonya.”
“Oh yeah?”
“She’s a pretty smart woman,” I grudgingly said. “She’ll never win an award for Miss Congeniality, but she’s smart.” Hillbilly nodded in understanding.
“By the way, thanks again for the dog.”
“How’s she fitting in?”
“She slept with the kids. I took her out shortly after I woke up. She did her business and then scampered back to their bedroom and waited for me to put her in.” Hillbilly smiled.
“That’s good.”
“Awfully quiet around here. Is anyone else awake yet?”
“I don’t think so. Even those two guards in the sniper towers are sound asleep.” I looked at him in surprise. He smiled and rummaged through the cabinets until he found two mugs.
“Were they that easy to spot?” I asked.
“Oh, no. The towers themselves are very well-camouflaged. It’s your personnel. They were a little tipsy last night and argued over which towers they wanted to sit in, right in front of everyone.” I mentally went over the guard roster and settled on Cutter and Shooter. Figures. I looked at my watch.
“They were supposed to be relieved an hour ago. I guess their relief is drunk and passed out as well.”
“Alcohol does some amazing things to people,” Hillbilly commented glibly.
“Yeah, I guess so. Good thing we didn’t have any problems.”
“Yep,” he answered, checked the pot of water, and began spooning coffee grounds.
“This is what’s called cowboy coffee. I was reluctant to fire up the generator just to use a percolator, so we’re going to have to settle for this.”
“Cowboy coffee?” I asked.
“Yep. What you do is boil water in a pot and then throw the coffee in. Let it boil for a few minutes and then use a spoon to scoop off the grounds floating on the top. Some folks throw a little bit of cold water in and the grounds sink to the bottom, but I do it this way.” He finished scooping and poured us two mugs.
“Thank you, sir.” It was stale, as usual, and I detected a few grounds that Hillbilly missed, but I liked it. God forbid the day when I had to go without caffeine.
“What’s the plan for the day?” Hillbilly asked.
“Hopefully, there’ll be more trading and socializing. As for me, I’m going to be helping Big Country. There’s a fancy horse farm not far from here. The owner, who must have been a bazillionaire, had at least a couple hundred head of varying breeds. After, they were being cared for by a man named Bo, but he’s disappeared and the horses have scattered everywhere.” I took a sip, and hooked a thumb at the direction of the farm.
“I’ve worked a deal with Big Country to trade a few horses for some bushels of peanuts. We just have to round them up.” Hillbilly digested what I said in silence while he drank his coffee and refilled our mugs before speaking.
“If you don’t mind, I believe I’d like to tag along,” he finally said.
“You’re more than welcome. I hope you have experience with horses.”
“I do,” he said simply. I figured he did. The man was rugged looking, a no nonsense kind of guy with big, rawboned hands every bit as calloused as Big Country’s.
We continued with a quiet conversation while other people awakened and made their way to the kitchen. I liked the man. His demeanor was so much like Fred’s they could have been brothers. Sarah and Rachel came in together and accepted our offer of coffee. Both women thanked us and I think I even caught them both eyeing Hillbilly a little bit longer than just a casual glance.
“Why don’t you two sit with us,” I suggested after I’d made introductions.
“Sarah and Rachel are military,” I said to Hillbilly. “Sarah is a pilot in the Air Force and Rachel in in the Army.” I thought a second. “I don’t really know what you originally did in the Army.”
“I was an exotic dancer,” Rachel said with a straight face. Hillbilly stared at her before she burst out laughing. “Gotcha.” Hillbilly smiled then.
“Yes, you did,” he admitted.
“I was a Forty-Six Quebec, which is the Army’s way of saying Public Affairs Specialist.” Hillbilly nodded.
“I could see you being on television.” Rachel blew a tuft of hair out of her eyes.
“I never got that far. I only wrote articles for the base commander and occasionally give him a blow job.” She waited for a long five seconds.
“Gotcha.”
“Alright, sugar plum,” Big Country said to his wife, “which one are we gonna take first?” Julie was wearing jeans and boots this morning with a tight-fitting tee shirt, sans bra, and a Stetson cowboy hat. She looked around and pointed at a big stallion.
“He’s a good one. I bet he has lineage.” I had no idea about that, he was big though, and since he’d had no human contact in a while, he was going to be a handful.
“Alright,” I said. “Let’s spread out, separate him from the others, and maneuver him to a corner. With any luck, we’ll be able to rope him without too much fuss.” Big Country held up a meaty hand.
“Hold on there, friend,” he said. “We all are gonna just sit tight and let my beautiful wife work her magic.”
“Uh, okay,” I said and glanced over at Hillbilly. He glanced back and made a slight shrug with his shoulders.
We watched as Julie separated herself from us and walked out into the field with nothing more than a halter and a rope. All of the horses were grazing, but they stopped and looked at her curiously. She ignored all of them but the big stallion. He looked at her for a moment and then went back to grazing. After a full ten minutes, he looked at her again. Julie produced something from her pocket and held it out.
“She’s got a cube of sugar,” Gigi whispered to us. I noticed Floyd was standing a little closer to her than normal and smiled to myself. “Horses can’t resist her when she does this.” I nodded in semi-understanding and wondered where they got cubed sugar from. The big horse stared at her in apprehension, but within a minute he started making his way toward her. The others followed his lead and soon had her surrounded, nudging her for her attention. We watched raptly as the big horse became a big baby in her hands as she stroked and cooed him. Within a minute, she had the halter around his head and tethered a lead to it. She walked him to the horse trailer and gently guided him in without breaking a sweat.
“Ain’t that something?” Gigi asked. Hillbilly and I nodded in agreement. Afterward, she walked back to us and pointed out three more.
“I like those three mares. That big stud has already impregnated them, I’m betting. Is that okay with you, Zach?” she asked.
“Yeah, fine by me. Let me ask you, are you going to keep them in the trailer?”
“Oh, no,” Big Country interjected. “We’ve got some barb wire. I’m going to rig up a temporary pen until time to leave.”
“Okay, great. So, yeah, the ones you picked out are just fine.”
“We’re much obliged,” Big Country said gratefully.
“That woman sure has a way with horses,” Hillbilly commented as we rode back to the church.
“A horse whisperer, just like that movie with Robert Redford,” I said. He nodded in agreement. “But much prettier,” I added. Hillbilly smile slightly.
“I couldn’t help but notice, there aren’t any zombies around here.” I nodded and gave him the Reader’s Digest version of our eradication efforts.
“Sounds a little bit like a military operation,” he said. I nodded again. “Very impressive.”
“We used a lot of ammo, but it was necessary. Have you and your people done anything similar?” I asked. Hillbilly shook his head.
“No, we had something else working to our advantage.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“The second winter was a cold one. Without a few billion people expelling carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, we had a brutal cold snap starting about the middle of January. It got down to twenty below for two nights and the rest of the week it got down to ten below every night. It was hard on the livestock and even harder on those infected things. Every one of them that were outside died.”
“Really?” I asked. Hillbilly nodded.
“You didn’t have anything similar?”
“No. We saw quite a few freeze solid, but when they thawed out they came back to life.” Hillbilly looked thoughtful.
“It sounds like when the temperature drops down to a certain level for a prolonged period, the effects are irreversible.”
“Yeah,” I said and thought a minute. “If this is not a phenomenon for only the plateau, it means up in the northern areas, the zombies are all but eradicated.”
“I certainly hope so,” Hillbilly said.
“How many survivors are there on the plateau?”
“The first year was about a hundred that I know of. Now, there’s maybe a dozen people left. Some died, others moved on.”
“What about your family?”
“All dead,” he said. “I’ve been on my own since almost the first. People up on the plateau are friendly folks but a bit clannish. Once it went bad, people became, shall we say, stand-offish.”
“You know, you’re welcome to stay here,” I said. “Nobody’s related and there’re plenty of vacant houses around here that’d be easy to fix up.” I pointed at the horse farm as we drove by it. “You could even live there, if you’re inclined.”
“I appreciate that, Zach, I really do. But, I’m fifty-years-old now and pretty set in my ways. I’ve lived up on the Cumberland Plateau all of my life and I believe that’s where I want to die.”
I really believed he’d be a valuable addition to our group and wanted to push the sales pitch, but I knew he was too much like Fred. If he said he wanted to live out the rest of his life on the Plateau, that’s exactly what he was going to do.
“Zach, I’ve been meaning to ask you, have you come into contact with any older survivors lately? You know, like over the age of sixty?” I thought about it and shook my head.
“Sadly no.” I told him about Bernie the Beekeeper. “He was the last one I know of and he died last year.”
“Yeah, the mortality rate isn’t very good these days.” We drove the rest of the way back to the church in silence.
“Are you sure about this?” I asked. Floyd nodded.
“About as sure as I’ve been about anything since the world changed.” He looked at me as if we knew something he didn’t. He asked me as much.
“We just want you to be happy, Floyd,” Kelly said.
“They seem like really good people,” I added. “If Gigi’s the one for you, we’re totally behind you.” He smiled gratefully.
“Thanks, you two. That means a lot.”
“Have you got everything loaded up?” I asked. Floyd nodded.
“Once I get to Dickson, I’ll find me another ride, so if you want my Toyota, you’re welcome to it.” After he’d busted one of the struts, he left his FJ Cruiser sitting on the side of Franklin Pike. It had low mileage and was otherwise in good shape, so, yeah, I had every intention of claiming it. Kelly and I walked with him over to Big Country’s truck where a lot of the school group was patiently waiting. Gigi had a grin on her face as big as Cheshire cat’s.
“Well now, young Mister Gunderson, this was a mighty fine rendezvous,” Big Country declared. “I reckon it’s going to be a yearly event?”
“That’s our hope,” I answered and gave him a folder with papers in it. “Here’s some instructions on building a dipole antenna so we can chat more often.” We shook hands and hugged and told each other how much we were going to miss each other. I thought Big Country was going to start crying. All four of them waved vigorously as they drove away.
“I’m going to miss Floyd,” Rhonda said as they drove off. “He was a sweet man.”
“Me too,” Marc and Ward said in unison. Gus didn’t have much to say, but he nodded at Rhonda’s statement. I noticed throughout the rendezvous the two of them had always stayed close to each other and idly wondered if they had started some kind of relationship. I looked over at Tonya.
“He had his uses,” she finally admitted. I guess that was the closest thing she could come to saying she was going to miss him as well. She looked around.
“That’s the last of them. Quite frankly I’m ready for some peace and quiet around here.”
“They sure did eat a lot of food,” Gus commented.
“Yeah, so did you,” Tonya retorted. Gus glowered at her but said nothing.
“I think it went rather well,” Ward said. “Except for that one little mishap.”
“Cutter’s claiming he got sucker punched,” Ward continued. “I didn’t see what happened, but I’ve heard a few variations.”
“Well, I’ll tell you what happened,” Ruth answered. “The dumbass got drunk and was making rude comments to Julie. That was stupid when you consider that she’s married to Sasquatch.”
“So, Big Country got jealous,” Marc concluded. Ruth scoffed.
“Julie told him to back off and so he called her a bitch. Jealous might not be the right word, more like defending the honor of his wife.”
“Cutter’s lucky,” Justin said. “If that man had hit Cutter with everything he had, I sincerely doubt he’d be still walking around.”
Cutter must have sensed we were talking about him. He emerged from the church as we were walking in. His left eye was blue and swollen shut.
“What are y’all talking about?” he asked.
“We were just saying how much we’re going to miss Big Country and his family,” I said innocently.
“Yeah, well he’s banned from ever coming back around here,” he proclaimed. Everyone got a good chuckle out of that. Cutter’s face reddened and he walked off.
“Where did Hillbilly go?” Kelly asked.
“He left last night,” Ruth said. “He came by before leaving and said he didn’t want to say goodbye and he’ll try to get back by here soon.”
“That’s odd,” Kelly said.
“He was a little bit aloof the whole time,” Marc said. “I think the only person he really talked to was Zach.”
“We think the crowd made him a little nervous,” Ward added. Marc nodded in agreement.
“I’d say you’re assessment is on the money,” I said. “He said all of his family are dead and he doesn’t have very much contact with other people. He’s become somewhat asocial, I’d guess.”
“Will he come back?” Kelly asked.
“Probably so, he just needs some time,” Ward said.
While everyone chitchatted, I walked in the church and looked around. The sheet of plywood had all kinds of notes tacked to it with messages to the lost. There were even some photographs. I heard the door open and looked to see Tonya walking in.
“I must admit, it went better than I thought it would,” she confessed. “I thought nobody at all would show up, or it would be a bunch of freeloaders looking for handouts.” She continued staring at the bulletin boards.
“You were right.” I glanced at her in surprise. She continued. “This is the way to rebuild a society.”
“We’re off to a decent start,” I replied.
“Do you believe the President?” she asked.
“About what, sending a delegation down here?” She nodded. “Yeah, I suppose they’ll do that at some point. Especially now that they know I’m alive.”
“Yeah, they’ll come down here and screw everything up,” she surmised. I chuckled.
“Yeah, most likely.”
“So, what’s next?” she asked.
“We’ve got a doctor and two nurses living here now, we need a clinic.”
“Where would we put it?”
“Either here at this church or at the school.”
“I’d rather it be here. There’s more room and I’d rather not have outsiders wandering around where I live.”
“Fine by me,” I replied. “Let’s make it Grant’s project. It’ll keep him busy.”