Taking It Back (8 page)

We moved cautiously forward in the knee-high grass, keeping an eye out for the Z. Charlie may have broken its back, then again, he may not. We approached the spot where we last saw it and got a surprise. The zombie was gone. I looked at Charlie and shook my head, and we immediately scanned the area. I unholstered my SIG and Charlie did the same with his Glock. We didn’t have time to hunt for the bastard, the remaining zombies were getting closer and tall grass hid them until you were on top of them, or they were on top of you.

Charlie and I stood back to back and waiting quietly, I heard movement to my right and looking down, sure enough the zombie was creeping slowly towards my leg. I bumped Charlie and he looked down and saw the Z as well. A skeletal hand reached through the grass and was just about to grab my ankle when my SIG barked and put the zombie down for good.

A groan got my attention and the rest of the zombies had reached the edge of the road and were now looking down at us. Their groans and our gunshots had attracted a lot more attention and what Charlie had said was zombie free turned out to be zombie full. I guessed we were looking at about fifty ghouls. Several of them started down the embankment, lost their footing and tumbled the rest of the way down. It was a putrid avalanche I had no intention of waiting for. I tapped Charlie on the arm and we ran back to the boat.

Tommy and Sarah and the others all had questions for us when we boarded the boat again and I gave them the long and short of it. Romeoville was dead, there was nothing to salvage that would be worth the risk of zombies. I also told them about the fast moving zombies and I saw Bev and Casey shudder as they considered the ramifications. The thought gave me the creeps as well.

6

We pushed off the canal edge and drifted away. Charlie nudged me and pointed back to where we had come and I could see several zombies, shuffling slowly along the edge of the canal, staying away from the water, but drawn to the meal that was drifting away. Charlie raised his rifle but I waved him off. They weren’t any danger, so there was no point in wasting the ammo.

We drifted farther south, coming up slowly to the town of Freeport. This town was in better shape than Romeoville and had been an old river town in its day. The original I&M canal ran through this area. Nate had made his way to this town and had secured parts of it. We would eventually make our way down here and retake this town as well. We didn’t need it right now, but I hoped eventually we would. There was a great stone building in Freeport that had once been a warehouse during the day of the canal, and would make a great fortification to use as a base for retaking the town.

I didn’t see any zombies as we drifted past, but I was sure they were there. They would always be there until we saw each and every one dead and burned.

We moved farther south, drifting lazily on the canal as the sun climbed higher in the sky. The canal was lined with trees and we moved in relative quiet. In fact, it was kind of boring. I found my mind wandering off in ways I hadn’t done for a year. It was weird how a little security made one relax.

I was in one of my mindless wanders when Sarah tapped me on the arm. We were approaching one of the locks on the canal, and there was a building that crossed three quarters of the canal. A lock system was on the left, and we would have to go through the locks to proceed further down the canal. I had considered this when we started off and we would have missed the locks had we followed the river, but we would have dealt with a lot of unseen underwater obstacles and I figured this was faster. But if the lock was closed we might be stuck.

We moved into the lock chute drifting slowly forward. We passed the lockkeeper offices and canal administrative offices of Joslin. We floated forward and luckily passed through the gigantic locks that regulated the flow of traffic on the canal. I figured the locks had been left open when everything went south, and no one had ever come back to set up the system again.

On the other side of the locks, the canal merged with the river, and the water flow was even faster. We were on the outskirts of Joslin and I was curious to see how the city had fared. We had seen bits and pieces of it when we were retrieving cargo containers last year, but we hadn’t gotten as close as we were now. We began to see more buildings and homes near the river and several bridges. Coming into view as well was the appearance of several hundred zombies. In one area alone I figured there had to be three hundred zombies milling about in a perverted, slow moving dance of death. They raised their voices as we passed and several moved towards the canal, but the way was blocked and they were unable to follow us. Several fell into the canal and we all watched carefully to see what would happen, but as far as we could see the damn things couldn’t swim, nor did they float.

I began to get an uneasy feeling the farther we drifted into Joslin, and the feeling was punctuated with the sounds of what was clearly gunfire. Somebody was shooting at something and by the sound of it, something was shooting back. I motioned for the women on board to go into the shelter and Charlie and I readied our weapons. We were in a bad way if someone opened up on us because we had no shelter and were pretty slow moving.

I motioned for Tommy to start the engine and get us past the town. As far as I was concerned, Joslin was a dead zone to be as avoided as much as Chicago. It sounded like there was a war going on and I personally did not want to get involved in it. Tommy fired up the engine and we moved quickly downriver, getting past four bridges and moving closer to the big interstate bridge. We saw zombies nearly everywhere and I realized this area was going to be a constant worry as long as it remained active. If someone was alive in there, they were welcome to it.

The river widened after we moved under the interstate bridge and I began to breathe easier as we were able to move farther away. I went over to the shelter and gave the all clear. Sarah glared at me as she came out.

“What now?” I asked.

“If there’s trouble why would you hide the women?” she asked, poking me in the chest.

“Because you and the other women are tempting targets to men who may not have seen a woman for a while, at least not a live one,” I said. “I’d rather fight just the dead right now.”

“Why?”

“Because the dead don’t shoot back,” I concluded. I glanced over at Charlie who was getting a similar earful from Rebecca. We shared a sympathetic look and went back to our poles.

Tommy ran the engine for a half an hour and we made significant progress. I was monitoring our trip on a roadmap and judging by the bends in the river and roads we were passing, I figured we were coming close to where we were going to have to get out of the boat and walk to our destination. We passed the town of Channahon and as I looked it over I could see it had been hit hard as well. A lot of zombies from Joslin must have traveled south and descended on this area as well. Charlie looked at me and I just shook my head. We didn’t have the manpower to take this on yet.

The sun was beginning to set lower in the sky and I figured we would need to camp. According to the map, we were passing the Des Plaines Conservation Area and I reasoned it would be a good place to settle for the night. I had Tommy turn down a side area on the river and we were pleasantly surprised to find a small marina nestled in the crook of the river. I could see a road that crossed the river farther up and effectively blocked any water passage in that direction.

I directed Tommy to bring us up alongside the pier and Martin and I jumped off with the mooring lines. We secured the boat and all of us got off to stretch our legs. The sun was lower in the sky and the east was darkening with purple streaks. The moon was making its appearance and I figured we had about two hours left of daylight. Tommy immediately began working on the grill to get dinner ready and the women pulled out the coolers. We were going to have hot dogs, having discovered the vacuum sealed packages lasted nearly forever. Not as long as Twinkies, but close.

Charlie and I decided to take a walk to secure the area and see if there was anything we could salvage for our trip or set aside to retrieve later. We moved down the pier and listened to the water from the river lap quietly against the supports. There were no other boats at the marina and I could only assume people used them to escape to who knew where. In the back of my mind I wished them luck.

Charlie and I approached a long building that seemed to be a maintenance shed for the marina. There were two boats in unusable condition outside the shed and scattered debris around the cleared area. We were surrounded by woods and I could see Charlie weighing in his mind what the possibilities of game animals in the area might be.

On the south side of the shed there was a pull-behind camper and a quick look revealed nothing of interest. In all likelihood this was just where it was stored until needed. Too bad the roads were pretty much unusable, this thing would have been valuable.

Charlie approached a large tank by the side of the building and tapped on it, starting high up and then moving lower. By sound, we figured there was about half of the tank left, about fifty gallons. We might need to figure a way to take that with us.

I approached the door of the shed and tried it out. It was locked. I moved over to one of the big garage doors and tried that. The door moved up about a foot and I stopped it there. I grabbed my flashlight, backed away and looked under the door. Seeing nothing, I opened the door all the way.

Inside there was a lawn mower, a small two person boat with a largish motor on it and a cluttered workbench along the far wall. I moved towards the workbench while Charlie went to the office door. A small row of lockers was next to the workbench and a cursory look into each one revealed several work shirts, a couple of towels, and decent supply of porn magazines. I smiled and turned towards the office as Charlie opened the door.

A huge zombie crashed into Charlie and bore him to the floor. The zombie had to be at least three hundred pounds and was dressed in a stained coverall with the name ‘Pete’ stitched on it. Charlie had his hand under the man’s chin, trying to keep the snapping jaws away from him, but I could see his hand slipping. I grabbed an old, wooden handled hammer from the bench and ran over to help. Charlie managed to get the zombie off of him and the two of them were lying side by side, struggling.

I stepped up to the zombie’s head and swung the hammer down, hard. The head of the hammer decided at that moment to slip off and it hurled across the garage to clang against the wall and floor. All I managed to do was bonk the zombie’s head with a piece of wood.

“Play the damn drums some other time!” Charlie forced out through gritted teeth.

I reversed my grip on the handle and shoved it in the zombie’s gaping mouth, barely getting my hand out of the way of the brown teeth. Charlie shoved the Z away from him and scrambled to his feet, followed by the huge zombie slowly getting up and coming at us. The handle of the hammer stuck out its mouth like the stick of a putrid candy apple.

Charlie whipped out a tomahawk and, snarling, jumped forward, burying the entire head of the ‘hawk in the Z’s skull. Charlie ripped out the blade as the zombie fell forward and it hit the ground with such force the hammer handle poked out the back of its head.

Charlie didn’t say a word, he just went to the bench and cleaned off the blade of his weapon with a greasy rag. Coming back to the front of the garage he said, “I’d thank you, but I’m not sure what for.”

I tried to look hurt. “I distracted him, didn’t I?”

Charlie stepped outside and sloshed a little gas on his tomahawk then produced a lighter to set it aflame. The gas burned red off the blade, a curious side-effect of burning the virus. When the red died away, Charlie blew out the flame and resheathed the weapon.

We went back to the boat and found everyone else had started eating. Sarah handed me a hot dog and asked if we had found anything. I shook my head and said, “Just a rotting corn dog.”

I ignored the piece of bun that bounced off my back.

7

I was on watch during the night when I saw the lights. We had loosened the mooring lines and allowed the boat to drift away from the dock about twenty feet. I figured that allowed us some security from any wandering zombies as well as keeping us from getting surprised by any others.

The lights were on the river and at first I wasn’t sure I had seen anything, but the lights flashed on and off intermittently and after a few minutes I realized the lights were looking for something, but trying not to attract attention while they searched. That made me wonder if they were actually friendly survivors, looking for other survivors.

The river was dark as pitch, making slow slapping sounds against the pontoons. The moon offered very little light, just enough to show where the river was, but the banks were deep in shadow. If I recalled correctly, this was a Rustler’s Moon. Light enough to see, but not light enough to aim a gun. I watched and saw the light again, checking the sides of the river. It was about three hundred yards upstream and moving slowly, with the river current. I couldn’t hear anything other than the sounds of the river, so I had no way of knowing for sure their intent.

I stepped over to where Tommy was sleeping and tapped him on the shoulder. He awoke with a start and was reaching for a weapon when I whispered, “Shh…it’s me. We’ve got company.”

Tommy scrambled to his feet and swung up his AR. “Where, what, who… zombies,” he stuttered, his head still asleep.