hand and laughed.
“You goof. You and Charlie just proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that you two can handle anything, including a horde of over two hundred zombies. I figured you might be doing something like this, so I sent Jason and some men to retrieve our cars and supplies.” Sarah gave me another hug as I just stared at her.
Charlie shook his head and said nothing which was probably the best idea right now.
An hour later, Charlie, Tommy, and I met up with Sheriff Harlan and talked about where we were going. We had retrieved our supplies and were now fully laden with gear, including ammo for our guns. I was taking my rifle and Charlie and Tommy would be backup with theirs.
Sheriff Harlan laid out a map. “We’re here. Down this rail line is Streator. We don’t know if there’s anyone alive in there, but considering how far they are from bigger centers, there’s a good chance people are there. The rail line has about four small towns on the way to Streator. If anyone’s there, they’re welcome here. My brother Tim and his family live here,” Harlan pointed to a small dot labeled ‘Ransom’. “If he’s there, I’d be obliged if you’d pass on the message that I’m alive.”
I nodded, briefly wondering about my own brother, who I hadn’t heard from in a year.
The sheriff continued. “We have a rail truck, so you can travel on the lines and get off on the road when you need to. We’ve used it to range north for supplies, but the recent uprising put a halt to that. You’re welcome to it.”
I could immediately see the advantages. Unless we ran into trains on the rails, we could head straight through to Streator.
“Sounds good. We’ll head out in the morning.”
Sheriff Harlan nodded. “Good. Your people can stay at the town hall tonight, I think there might be a small celebration tomorrow. Everyone’s just too tired today.”
We all laughed and after about another two hours of planning, went back to the town hall. I told Sarah about the plan and when we planned to move out. She agreed with what we were doing and then gave me some good news.
“I spoke with Nate today, Jake and Julia are doing fine,” Sarah said. “Jakey misses his daddy and wants him to come home soon.”
I smiled. “That’s my boy.” I stretched out on the carpet of the office and pulled a cushion from the couch. “I didn’t think I’d be this tired after the nap I had.”
“Nate also said a friend of yours showed up looking for you.”
“Who?”
“You’ll never believe it.”
“Tell me.”
“Our friend Dot.”
I was amazed. “I’ll be damned. I thought she was never going to leave her house.”
Sarah shrugged. “Nate said she got lonely and looked for you at the condo complex, but Duncan steered her towards Leport.”
I laid back. “She’ll make a welcome edition to the community.”
Sarah sidled down onto the floor next to me and threw a leg over my waist. “How tired are you?” she breathed into my ear.
“Remarkably well-rested, thank you for asking,” I said, laughing as I wrapped her up in my arms. “What did you have in mind?”
Sarah’s response wore me out much more than the zombie horde could ever have hoped to do.
16
Charlie, Tommy, and I planned on starting down the rails first thing in the morning. Sheriff Harlan had assured us that we had enough gas to get us to Streator and back, but if we wanted to take side trips, we were on our own. I did not immediately see a need to travel off the rails, but if a train was in the way and the possibility was pretty good, we were going to have to use the roads. I asked Harlan if there might be a gas can somewhere and in short order I had two three-gallon cans. Tommy and Jason managed to siphon five gallons out of one of our cars, so we were able to increase our range, if necessary. Tommy stored the gas in the back of the truck while Jason wandered off to find a piece of gum or a breath mint.
Sarah helped me pack and repack my backpack, although I did not see us being gone for more than a day, I packed enough supplies for three days. I figured we would just be scouting and seeing if there were any survivors. We stood a good chance of finding more people the farther we got from large population centers.
Sarah had a look on her face and said, “You know, it’s funny.”
“What is?” I asked, shouldering my pack and adjusting my holster.
“You actually sound hopeful. Before you seemed to look at what you were doing as a kind of mission, that if you didn’t do it, no one else would and the world would eventually die out. Now, you’re almost smiling at the prospect.”
I thought about that for a minute. “Is it a bad thing? Maybe we’ve turned a corner on this whole dead thing.”
“Actually, it is kind of nice. You used to look at situations where if it worked, great, if not, oh well. Kind of attractive, in a way.”
I puffed my chest out and gave my best Burt Lancaster smile. “I won’t let it go to my head. Much.”
“Good,” Sarah said. “You’ll get yourself killed if you do and then you’ll be useless to me and everyone else.”
I deflated when I realized she was right. I was alive because I took nothing for granted, never hoping for too much for fear of running myself into despair when things turned south. When this all started, I had one focus; save my son. Now that I have managed to secure some relative safety for him and others, my focus shifted; finding others and making sure they survived as well. I still needed to survive for my son and when I thought about what might have happened yesterday, I just shook my head. The fight was still out there and I still had a lot of work to do.
“Thanks,” I said, kissing her on top of her head.
“You’re welcome,” she said. “Jake needs you, the community needs you, and I need you.”
“I won’t do anything stupid on purpose,” I promised.
“Good.”
Sarah and I walked down the street towards the east end of town. The sun was just rising, the blue of the sky chasing the purple of night back to the west. The morning air was brisk, it was still spring. But it promised to be a warmer day. I could still smell a little of the decay left behind by the dead and there was a large blackened area by the gazebo where the ghouls had been burned in the piles Charlie and I had made the day before. Looking at the gazebo, I suppressed a shudder when I thought how close of a call that had been. Had Tommy and the others fallen before we could have been rescued, we likely would still be up in the rafters, slowly starving to death.
We passed through the town, raising a hand in greeting to those whose days had started as early as ours. We got many smiles and a few words of gratitude. I was grateful we were able to lend a hand here. This town deserved to live, these people were the kind that would rebuild and make things better than they were before. They had a real sense of community that would be hard to put down. And now, after they had been tested in battle, anyone trying these people would be shoved back. Hard.
We reached the fence line shortly and climbed up the nearest ramp. On top of the fence, I saw we had climbed up too far to the north, so we wandered along the fence to the ladder that reunited us with our friends.
Charlie and Tommy were already there as well as Rebecca and Jason. Charlie was checking the mini-train wheels which kept the truck on the rails and Tommy was finishing securing the supplies on the back.
“‘Bout time,” Tommy said. “You wanting us to wait forever?”
I stared at Tommy. “Yes, I do,” I said with a straight face. “If I let you and Charlie off by yourselves, I’d have to save your sorry asses within ten minutes.”
