“What’re the odds of finding the bodies if Fred hadn’t come along?” Liam asked.
“Slim,” Logan replied. “You have to give him credit. He’s a hell of a tracker. If Zach were involved in killing them, I don’t think the old man would have shown this to us.”
“Agreed, brother, but our work is hardly finished. It’s going to get more complicated. Alright, enough chitchat. I’m going to rest my eyes for a little bit while you drive. Try not to hit any potholes.”
Chapter 3 – Louisiana (the City, not the State)
It was well before dawn when Clay awakened. His fire had gone out during the night and he was shivering. Looking into the stove, he only saw a tendril of smoke.
“Dang it,” he muttered.
The bucket he kept kindling in was down to only a couple of pieces of pinewood and his other bucket only had a handful of dried leaves left. He put it all in the stove and tried to coax the embers to life.
“C’mon,” he growled in between puffs of breath.
He was rewarded a moment later with a lick of a flame, and after another minute the kindling was burning. He hurriedly dressed and, after peeking out of his spy hole, went outside and gathered up some seasoned logs from the woodpile.
Soon he had a roaring fire in the stove and the interior was warming up. He went through his morning chores with no level of vigor before washing up and sitting down to breakfast. While he ate, he thought of all the things he needed to do. He needed to go hunting, scavenging, and pay a visit to Big Tussey, but the snow and cold temperature would make any of those endeavors twice as hard.
He ultimately decided to fix a Thermos of hot tea and climb up the radio tower for a while. There were three small wooden platforms built by the previous occupant, a man by the name of Merlin LeBlanc. Clay estimated the first platform somewhere at the seventy-foot mark. The other two were higher up, but Clay never went up to those. Nope, seventy feet was high enough for him.
He secured his safety tether, brushed the snow off the seat, and sat. It wasn’t comfortable by any means. The cold seeped into his butt cheeks within seconds and the wind stung his cheeks. He made himself as comfortable as he could before doing a slow, deliberate sweep of the area with a pair of binoculars. The town of Louisiana and surrounding landscape was white with a four-inch blanket. Only the mighty Mississippi was free of snow, its brown water flowed quietly. He could see a few animal tracks, but no tire tracks, no humans, and thankfully, no zeds.
He hung the binoculars on a hook which was fastened to one of the pylons, stretched, and rubbed a kink out of his neck. One of his pressing tasks was to go through some of the houses until he found a comfortable pillow, but that would have to wait. Taking a sip from his Thermos, he began pondering his life, as he often did when he was sitting up here.
This gig, as he thought of it, was not bad. Except for the loneliness. The extreme loneliness.
When he was sentenced to banishment, his wife and stepdaughter turned their back on him. They did not even come to say goodbye when they loaded him up to bring him here. He still fumed at the memory and had to admit, it hurt. It hurt a lot.
He thought back to the first night he met Irena. It was at a honkytonk bar and she was wearing a tight shirt with a low vee-cut that revealed a lot of cleavage. He was probably smitten from the beginning and after a whirlwind relationship they married six months later.
Life was good, but not without its problems. Irena was needy and high maintenance. At one time he suspected her of cheating on him with a co-worker and was ready to leave her. She swore it wasn’t true, and then played the sympathy card; if he left, she and Hermione would be homeless. Hermione was seven at the time and her mother had her crying uncontrollably. Clay ultimately caved in.
Then the plague hit. Fortunately for the Flemings, Clay was one of those guys who regularly surfed the survival and conspiracy websites. He believed, like most doomsday preppers did, that a major event of some type was coming. When they started closing the International airports, he knew this was no ordinary winter flu bug.
This was it. The big one. The red balloon.
He left work early and promptly cashed out his retirement account, bought everything he could think of, and hauled his wife and stepdaughter to his grandmother’s old farmhouse in the Shamong Township of New Jersey. It was him, his mother, wife, and daughter. The three women did not have the first clue about using firearms, but he figured it was far enough out of the way that they’d be safe.
He was wrong.
They were overrun by zeds in the first week. Clay had killed several. He was a good shot, and he didn’t waste ammo, but there were too many of them and they were trapped inside his grandmother’s house.
His mother died the same day the electricity went out and they had to store her decomposing remains in a closet for the next fourteen days until the zeds finally ambled off, drawn away by some other stimuli.
Then there was the flooding and the marauders. The flooding destroyed the garden. The marauders showed up before sunrise a day later. They were probably nice, civilized people at one time, but when they showed up on the property, they were starving and desperate. They also had Clay out gunned. They took all
