“We pushed hard for the river, coming up through Freeport. We managed to use all of the cargo containers from the depot.” Nate said.
That raised my eyebrows. “Really? There had to be a thousand of them.”
Nate laughed. “One thousand, three hundred, and forty-six. We spread out not only west but east. There was a lot of farmland to the southeast.”
I nodded. It was sound move. “If ever we decide to tackle the city, there’s another storage depot near Chicago.”
Nate shuddered. “No thanks. I’ll do that when I’m bored with life.”
I smiled, wondering when that might ever happen.
“We managed to free up an additional seventy-eight people in our push west and would you believe it? Twenty of them are young guys, between nineteen and twenty-five years old who had banded together to save each other when the crap went down.”
I whistled. That was a good force to send against the Z’s if they were trained right. Who was I kidding? They had Nate. Of course they were trained. I motioned for him to continue.
“We have quite a few families, lots of kids, and we are in a good position for food and supplies right now. We will need to forage until the first crops come in, and we will have to start some animal raising, but I imagine we have the land for that.”
I nodded. “The forest preserves we went through to get here have a lot of clearings surrounded by heavy woods. Once upon a time these were farms, so they can be farms once again. There are enough homes nearby for people to manage the herds and protect them as needed. We can trench them for defense and also to keep the animals from straying.”
Nate seemed impressed. “Always looking ahead, hey?”
I shrugged. “Looking back these days puts some strain on your soul, you know what I mean?”
“Amen, brother. Amen.” Nate shifted his position. “Any troubles?”
I looked at him. “Depends on your point of view.” I told him about the problems I had with Pamela and Dane Blake. Nate’s eyes darkened when he heard we were set up for an ambush. I told him about Sarah and Kristen’s kidnapping, and Kristen’s subsequent murder. Nate dropped his eyes at that. I told him about Kevin and Frank.
“Holy shit! A pit full of zombie heads! Who comes up with shit like that? Not that I’m sad to see those two gone, but that’s a hell of a way to go.”
I nodded. “We haven’t been back since, so I’m sure there are a lot of supplies there, but I have no rush.” I talked about leaving Duncan in charge and his standing orders to leave a corridor open to refugees, and also what happened to Chelsea.
Nate shook his head. “Maybe you should have stayed put.”
I thought about it for a second. “No, we needed to make the push to re-establish a workable zone for survival and re-taking what was lost, and we couldn’t do it from just one place. So how about you?” I asked.
Nate held up his hands. “Nothing so dramatic. We had a few bands of zombies to deal with, some survivors to train and acclimate. Most of them are anxious to meet the great John Talon.”
I rolled my eyes. “The only reason I keep going out to risk my neck is because I haven’t any useful skills like plumbing or electric work.”
Nate laughed. “We’ll get you elected yet. Anyway, in our push to the river, we happened across this home that had a ham radio set up in it.”
That piqued my interest. “Really? Anyone know how to use it?” I knew ham radios were used to communicate all over the world, and if we could get one working, we might actually be able to communicate with other people and find out if there was anyone left in the world.
“As a matter of fact, Jim Bigelow knew how to work it. We didn’t have a power source at the time, but we took it with us anyway.”
I got the idea Nate was holding something back. “What are you not telling me?”
Nate leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table. He looked down and it was a long time before he looked up. He sighed and said, “We’re not alone.”
I leaned back in my chair and stared at him. When I found my voice I asked, “How do you know?”
“We had a generator we found in the home of a carpenter, and we hooked the radio up to it. Jim worked on it for a while, then we heard the voices. We were pretty excited about that, until we started to seriously listen to the people on the radio. We got broadcasts from all over the place, all kinds of languages.” Nate paused. “There’s survivors all over, but not much else. Some people are screaming for anyone to help, others are just trying to find a link to keep themselves from committing suicide. Several times, we could hear the dead moaning in the background. After a while, we just turned it off.”
“Must have been bad, hearing people and not being able to help or even let them know you could hear them.”
Nate looked down again. “I actually felt guilty knowing what we have and hearing about people starving or about to be overrun.”
I tried to be reassuring. “You can’t save everyone. We’re on our own as much as anyone else. We got lucky, but we fought for it too.”
Nate turned cryptic. “Maybe we can save some.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, looking at his maps for a clue.
“We got a broadcast we actually answered, and they know about us, and we know about them,” Nate said. “Turns out they managed to escape the virus itself, and have barricaded themselves against the hordes. But they know they can’t hold out forever and were wondering if we could lend a hand.” Nate looked at me questioningly.
I chuckled at his look. “Phase three.”
Nate’s face turned quizzical. “Phase three?”
“Sure. Phase one was to survive the Upheaval. Phase two was to establish a safe zone we could live in permanently. Phase three was to go out and see who else might be out there and either bring them in or establish communication and increase the size of our community.”
“Is there a phase four?” Nate asked.
“Yes.”
“And?”
“You’ll see.”
“You haven’t lost your wonderful sense of humor” Nate said.
“The secret to a spicy relationship is a little mystery. Didn’t you know that?” I grinned at Nate who rolled his eyes. “Tell me about our new friends.”
“Okay. Here we are.” Nate opened a map of Illinois and indicated our position with a pencil. “We know that State Center Bravo is located here.” He pointed to an area located about ten miles southeast of Morris in a spot that looked like it was surrounded by waterways and state parks. “The town that contacted us is located here, called Coal City.”
I looked at the map. “How have they managed to survive? They’re in between two interstates and a major road passes through their area. Not to mention having a state center nearby with who knows how many infected that might have headed that way, not knowing they had the virus until it was too late.”
“Actually, they did it pretty much the same way we did. They are a junction of rail lines, so they used cargo containers. One of their people was a train driver and he made the run to this rail yard here,” Nate indicated a spot north of the town, “and grabbed train movers and flatbeds, along with a mess of cars. They made a fence like we did.”
“So what’s the trouble?” I asked. “Far as I can see, they should be all right.”
Nate nodded. “They were, but the situation changed and they’re seeing a lot of zombie activity and they just don’t have the resources to take care of it.”
“And we do?” I arched an eyebrow at Nate.
“You’ll think of something, I’m sure. Did I mention half the town is under the age of 10?” Nate said.
“You really fight dirty, you know that?”
“Call it revenge for my ribs, which are still sore by the way.” Nate said, pulling out a pad of paper and a pen.
