White Ash on Bone: A Zombie Novel (17 page)

The junk yard had been there Jack's entire life and housed thousands of old vehicles.  Who ever had owned it had long ago stopped bringing in new wrecks to the property, and the yard had turned into a time capsule of a past age.  Trees had grown up through many of the wrecks as life asserted its claim on their forgotten husks. The sun and time had burned away the once brightly colored paint leaving only faint glimpses of their former glory.

Jack rolled down his window, "Ma’am, do you need some help?" 

"This was my Daddy's property, and I don’t plan on leaving’ it," she replied.  "I do appreciate your concern though; of all the vehicles that have gone by since yesterday, you’re the first one to stop and check in on me.  Come to think of it, no one has stopped to check in on me in months, but that’ll be over soon.  My name is Ruth, Ruth Denton.  Who would you be young man?"

"Name’s, Jack. Ma’am, it’s not exactly safe to be sitting outside at the moment."

"I may be old, but I’m not a damn fool.  I’ve a television, and know all about it."

Jack opened the door of the van and stepped out. 

"I didn’t mean to imply anything. I just wanted to make sure nothing happened to you."

"Well of course something’s going to happen to me.  Look at me; I’m older than these junkers.  I don’t have time left to be running all over God's creation.  My life’s been here and I’m going to die among these relics one way or another.  I expect I’ll have company soon enough to see me out."

"If that’s how you feel, why the shotgun?" Jack said.

"I’ve been shooting vermin round this yard for better than 50 years, why should it be any different when they come?  They’ll win out in the end, like time, and chew my bones, but I’ll line them up like these wrecks here until it’s my time."

"Can we do anything for you before we go?" Jack said.

"No, but since you’re the only live people I’m likely to talk to before the end I'll do you a kindness and send you off with a parting gift.  Come on round this here car, I got a secret to show you."

Ruth slid off the hood of the car and led him around the back of the vehicle.  She pulled open the trunk to the sound of screechy hinges.  She reached in and pulled out a wooden case of mason jars filled with liquid.

"My Daddy set this place up to make shine during Prohibition.  He taught me how to make it when I was a little girl.  You young people be carful with this stuff, it’s got a lot more piss than what you kids drink these days.  Come on, I'll walk with you back to your van and meet that pretty girl you got there."

Ruth followed him back to the van limping a bit as she carried her shotgun in two hands.  Donna slid over to the driver’s seat and leaned out the open window.  Jack passed the case of Mason jars to Donna who put them on the floor inside.

“My goodness,” Rush said, “You’re such a pretty thing to have all those bruises on your face.  You better not tell me Jack here had anything to do with that.”

“No, he didn’t,” Donna replied, “But I’d be in worse shape, if he hadn’t come along.”

“Good, good,” Ruth replied, “Well what's your name then, darling?”

“Donna.”

“My name’s Ruth, and this here’s my place.  Come here Jack, because I got something I want to tell the two of you.  I was telling Jack that I ain’t going to leave this place, and I accept the fact that my end is at hand.  That makes me a dying old woman with a bit of wisdom to impart.”

Jack moved closer and watched while Ruth took Donna’s hand.

“I’m eighty-seven years old and have seen many a change during my years. I don’t know if these are the End of Day’s like they talk about in The Good Book, but I can tell you this. It’s the end of days, as you know it.  The generations before now were made of harder stuff.  We knew things and how to do by ourselves with out having to call someone to fix stuff for us.  There was real sacrifice and hardship. Many a strong man broke his body down to dust at a young age, just to put a little bit on the table.  You younger folk ain’t ready to face those days again, and you don’t know the things we knew about the world.  Even the rudimentary common stuff of my day, like making soap, smoking meat, or distilling is going to be something you’re going to have to figure out from a damn book.  I've seen this evil getting ready to befall us for decades now.  Not that I knew it would be like this, but that it would leave the younger people in the street like orphans after a war.”

“There’s going to start being people out there looking out for themselves.  They may want what you have and be willing to take it.  Then there are going be just plain evil people that will inflict ill on the world for their own amusement.  You have to be ready for it. Be ready to be your own law.  Necessity is going to dictate a lot of things on you, and I pray you can bear it.  You’re the only vehicle I’ve seen come down that road behind you since yesterday, so I assume whatever is behind you is something the two of you survived together.  You may not be a couple, but you’re in a different world then the one you left behind down that road.  You have a responsibility to each other now, an obligation and one that should not be lightly abandoned.”

“In all my years, I never was married nor had kids of my own.  I want to spend my last hours thinking of you two as my kids.  Give me your hand now, Jack.”

Ruth rested her shotgun on the side of the van and took Jack’s hand and placed it on top of her hand holding Donna’s.

“Jack, you watch out for my little girl, Donna here.  They have tried to take her, but I want you to try and find a safe place for her.  Donna, you take care of my only son Jack.  I can tell from his eyes that he’s suffered a great loss in his life.  I saw that same look on my father’s eyes after he lost my mother.  Make him happy as it may be in your power, and bring water to a weary soul.  Now, I’m going say a prayer for the two of you. I want you to get, without a word, after I’m done.  That road behind you, and in front of you, carries death with it. You best be gone, before it catches you.”

“Dear, Lord, hear the final prayer of your daughter Ruth. I hear you calling me home. I pray for the courage to meet it here among this cemetery of the world behind us.  I pray for blessings for my two children here.  Their way is beset by the bones of our dying world.  Help them break those bones. May they may find brighter lands in their future with green pastures and blue skies.”

Naomi had jumped up into Donna’s lap and peered out the window with her blue eyes looking at Ruth. 

“I’ve never seen more beautiful eyes in my whole life,” Ruth said.  “I’m going to go sit on the hood of my car and think about those eyes till it’s my time.  Shouldn’t be long.”

Ruth offered her hand to the cat.  Naomi smelled her hand and gave it a small lick and blinked at the old lady.  “You keep watching over him like she wanted,” Ruth said.  Without another word she turned around and walked off.

“Jack, are you all right?” Donna asked.

“Yeah, I just want to get out of here if it’s all right with you,” Jack said.

“I’m ready to go, look behind us,” she said.

In the distance, came five of the undead crossing a field a quarter-mile away.

Donna slid back over into the passenger seat holding Naomi while Jack got back in the truck.

“What creeps me out,” Donna said, “is how I can’t fault anything she said about our generation.”

###

"This is it, turn right here," Brandi said pointing at the driveway leading off route 68 to her parent's house.

Alison's head pounded with a headache from stress.  Getting out of Butler had been a close call.  What Rex couldn't drive around he had smashed through to make it out of Butler.  Red handprints smeared the windows of the vehicle where the undead managed to reach the sides when Rex was forced to slow down for too long.

Alison didn’t want to think about the family they had come across, but their faces were fresh in her mind.

A couple carrying their two young children ran out into the street as the truck was passing them by.  Three times as many zombies were chasing the family.  Rex slowed down, and the father had pushed his wife and children onto the back of the fiberglass covered truck bed.  A zombie grabbed the man by the back of his shirt and yanked him to the ground. 

Alison opened the back window and shouted to the woman, "Get the kids inside.”

Two more zombies came at the truck from the passenger side, and the one creature's hand caught inside the woman's shoe.  The shoe went flipping in the air, but the vehicles momentum was enough to send the woman and one of the children sliding off the back of the truck.

Alison reached out the back window of the vehicle to try and grab the last child, but inches away from her lunge the child jumped off the vehicle to go to its mother.

"No," Alison screamed and pounded the bed cover as she watched the undead tear into the family.  A zombie picked up one of the kids.  The child kicked and punched out at the ghoul with no effect.  Alison felt hands grab on to her from inside the truck and pull her back in.  She closed her eyes to the family's fate.

At Brandi's house her parents turned out to be alive.  Her father had stepped outside of the white vinyl-sided home with a shotgun at the ready.

Brandi threw her door open before the vehicle stopped and greeted her father.  "Daddy, it’s me, where is Mom?"  A woman rushed out of the inside of the house and the couple ran to meet their daughter. Everyone exited the truck and exchanged introductions with Brandi's parents.

"I'm Carl and this is my wife Sue. I can’t thank you folks enough for bringing our baby home."

"Ginger and Alison helped me get out of the mall,” Brandi said. “Without them I wouldn't have made it home."

"Your Dad wanted to go looking for you," Sue said. "But I made him stay home in case you made it here.  We’ve been watching the news, and it's starting to get real sketchy.  They’ve been showing footage of refugees at the stadium in Pittsburgh.  They’re surrounded by thousands of them."

"What about the army?" Rex said.

"Confused," said Carl.  "The media’s having a field day with the government’s response.  Most of our combat units are overseas in Afghanistan so they’re working on what they have left.  They’re talking about it taking weeks to months to pull the troops back home.  The State and Federal government was in the process of sending help here, but then it started happening in Pittsburgh.  They got some units in there, but the President has since ordered that they redeploy to the bigger cities that are having problems."

"So we have been triaged," Alison said.

"Basically," Carl said.

"What about the County Airport?" Rex said. 

"They’re still there," Carl replied.  "Are you thinking of heading that way?"

"Yep," Rex said. "You and your family are more than welcome to join us.  I don’t think you want to be hanging around here when those things show up.  If they’re after someone in a house they keep at it till they break in or another opportunity presents itself.  They’re cracking open houses like crab shells. We've seen it hundreds of times this morning.  I suppose you could fort your place up if you had enough time and if you had the supplies to hold out.

Carl eyed the AK-47 in Rex's hands.  "No, I'm afraid I’m not as well prepared as you seem to be.

Rex smiled, "Just as Obama said, some of us cling to guns and religion.” 

"We should eat first," Sue broke in.  "While you load up the SUV, Carl, Brandi, and I can fix some food.  We don’t know when we’ll get another chance."

"Good idea," Ginger said, "Just give me something to keep busy with."

The group broke off to cook and pack up.  Alison stayed behind at the truck with Rex.  "What are you doing?" Alison said.

"I'm going to watch the road," Rex said. "I also want to break up a few of these ammo crates into pouches."

"Do you need some help?" she said.

"Sure, these crates marked with 7.62 are the ammo for the AK-47s and the SKSs.  Some of the crates have ammo that is pre-packed in stripper clips.  Those can be used to fast load an SKS.  Drop those in these pouches here.  If the ammo is loose, you can load into these magazines here in this bag.  We should have done this last night, but I was afraid that the doors would come bursting open at any second."

Alison opened a box of ammo full of the stripper clips and grabbed a handful to push into a pouch.

"Do you think your wife is okay?" she asked.

"Looks like she’s trying to keep busy; I suppose it’s a good thing," Rex said.  "I shouldn’t have let her mom run into the house last night."

"It's not your fault, Rex," Alison said, "And you don’t need to second guess yourself right now."

"What about Ginger?" Rex said. "I can deal with my own ghosts, but I don’t know if I can handle it if she blames me."

"She's a lucky girl, Rex.  Even if it does take her some time, she is going to remember that."

"And if she doesn't remember?" Rex said.

"Then I’ll remind her of the fact," Alison said.  "I’ll also tell her about my life having a husband that cheats on me.  I don’t know if you remember, but last night they had a doctor they were interviewing at the airport."

"Your husband?" Rex said.

"And his
special
assistant," Alison replied.  "While I’m out here struggling for my life, she's with him."

"I'm sorry," Rex said.

"Don’t be sorry for me,” Alison said. “I’ve made my own choices in life. I did this to myself."