“Possibility.” She glanced at her watch and made a mental note. “You know that I have to hold you for twenty-four hours.” He groaned and his body went slack. She patted his leg as she reached for her coffee. “I would suggest you use this time to catch up on that sleep you missed out on. Once we’re confident you haven’t contracted the virus, I’ll be the first to apologize for the inconvenience.”
Charles blew out a breath and nodded. “Fine.”
She turned to leave when he asked softly, “Mind hitting the lights on your way out? It will make it easier to catch a few winks.”
She nodded and reached to slap the switch on her way out. She did an about face and watched him for a moment through the glass of the doors. She grabbed an orderly and whispered, “I want somebody checking his vitals every hour on the hour. Try not to disturb him, though. He needs to rest if he can.”
“Yes, ma’am.” The orderly made a note then trotted off to continue his duties.
Vivian sighed then went to her office. She had people in the chain of command to notify of the incident. How do you explain that one of your lead researchers may have been infected?
She was not looking forward to this call.
Henry turned the pickup down one road after another. “Tell me you see a damned dump truck.”
Wally shook his head. “I don’t even see a tractor we could use.”
Henry cursed under his breath. “I don’t get it. We live in a freakin’ desert. How can we not find a truck full of sand?”
“It’s not like in the northeast where they salt and sand the roads, Hank.” He sighed and propped his chin on his hand. “Seriously, I think we’d have better luck if we just looked for a tractor with the big scoop on the front.”
Henry slowed the truck, then turned and stared at Wally. “There used to be an equipment rental place over bySears.”
“So?”
“So? So, we go by there, pick out a tractor with the front end loader attachment, and we scoop up the sand ourselves.”
Wally shook his head. “I know there’s sand and dirt everywhere, but where is there any that’s close to the warehouse? I say, let’s go by a Home Depot and get bags of play sand. It’s already sacked up like they do concrete. I can sit on the back of the truck, and dump it out as you drive along, and then we drive over it a couple of times.”
Henry stared at the man open-mouthed.
Wally shrugged. “What?”
“That is the single most best idea I think you’ve ever had.” He broke into a wide smile and put the truck back into gear.
The pair drove like mad to the nearest hardware store and Henry drove through the thin, flimsy bar meant to keep people out of the lumber yard. They drove to the rear of the lumber load-out section, and, as hoped, there was a full pallet of bagged sand.
Henry slapped at Wally. “You’re a friggin genius.”
The pair climbed out and loaded bags of play sand into the bed of the truck. Wally patted the top of the pile, then nodded to Henry. “I think this is enough. Let’s go!”
Henry slid back into the cab and pulled the truck out of the lumber yard. He half-expected a Zulu to rush him as he pulled back into the light of the sun. Between the damned marauders and the cannibalistic infected, his nerves were about shot.
Wally sat in the back of the truck and used a box knife to cut open as many bags as he could without losing the sand. He propped the bags on end and made himself a place to sit near the tailgate while Henry maneuvered the pickup through town.
When Henry pulled past the gas station with the burned-out Civic, he slowed and waited for Wally to get into place.
Wally plopped onto the tailgate and gave him a wave. “Ready. Just go slow.”
Henry let his foot off the brake and tried to keep the gouges in the road approximately lined up with where Wally was sitting on the tailgate.
He watched Wally slowly dump bag after bag and they even had a few left over when they reached the spot that the Civic had burned. They scattered as much sand over the burnt pavement as they could, then drove back down the road to inspect their work.
Wally paled and turned to Henry. “It almost looks worse. It’s like we purposely left a trail.”
Henry grunted. “We pretty much did.”
They stopped the truck midway down the street and studied it. “Maybe if we used a big push broom?” Wally offered.
Henry shook his head. “You’d be able to see that it was swept. That would tell anybody that somebody was near.”
“We could drive over it a few times.” Wally suggested.
Henry shook his head again. “Fresh tire tracks in the sand? Nope.”
“Yeah, I didn’t think of that.” He drummed his fingers along the console of the pickup and continued to stare at it. “Too bad we couldn’t conjure up a big wind storm to scatter it a bit.”
Henry nodded. “But not too big. We still want the gouges to be filled with sand.”
Wally turned to him and gave him a big smile. “What if we block the road?”
“With what? Police barricades?”
“Nope. The box truck.” His smile continued to spread and Henry gave him a confused look.
“You want to park the box truck at the end of the road?”
“Not park. Flip it on its side.” He pointed to the entryway of the gas station. “If we put it on the other side of that, we can still get in and out pretty easy, we just use the gas station lot. But to somebody just driving by, it will look like there was an accident. Maybe it happened when everything was first going down…who’s to say?”
Henry mulled the idea around a bit and shook his head. “We’d have to clear that through Candy.”
“So,
