work done, the next one just plugs into a slot on the first one.”
“Hmm, this could be mighty handy in the days to come, if things are as bad as I hear. We can't even get through to Denver, forget about anywhere further west. I bet they lost the power grid. I can see why you needed to pick this up now. That can just along for the ride then?” asked Rick pointing to the blue diesel can.
“No, I was hoping to fill it somewhere.” said Bill and he and Rick lifted the supports on top of the crate and truck cab.
“You are somewhere. I won't regret filling it for you. We have a tank out back to top off the trucks.”
Bill grinned, “You just made my life a lot easier, thanks!”
“No, thank you. You did good by me and it is the least I can do, I wish I could do more for you, I feel like you just saved me and Gail.”
“Well thank you Rick.”
“You know we got in three more of these on the same truck, they were supposed to go to other places, one down in Pleasant Hill, the others further south.”
“Huh, what are you thinking?”
“Do you have more room for them at your place?”
“Oh, I couldn't take them, that is too much, plus how would I get them there?”
“Well I wasn't thinking that, if these just plug in to each other and you already have the ground work done, it might come to the point where it would be better for them to be set up at your place than sitting in a truck unused.” Rick held up his hand, “If we get to that point I might give you a call, okay?”
“Yeah, sure, I see what you are saying.”
“You got a spread of land?”
“Yeah, a few acres.”
“So you have room then. I won't hesitate to use anything left here to help anyone out, if things get scarce. I mean that Bill, you saved us, so do not hesitate to call me. I am going to give you my home phone and cell phone, in addition to my address, if you want for anything you think I might have, you just let me know.”
“Well Rick, I don't know what to say but 'thank you' and I know you would have done the same for me. If I need anything I will call you.”
Rick shook Bill's hand, then moved to John and shook his as well, telling the young man thank you as well and not to hesitate to contact him if they needed anything at all.
Ricky then made sure Gail was okay and behind a locked door in the office. After scribbling a copy of his contact information onto some plain white paper he photocopied it and handed both copies to Bill. Bill asked him if he wanted his information and Rick laughed, saying he already had it in the system for the package delivery. Then Rick led them to the diesel pumps around the back of the package terminal. There was a rusty old ground tank surrounded by a chain link fence that had been repaired many times already. The fence gate was locked, and there was a lock on the pump handle as well with a third lock on the 'on/off' switch. Seeing Bill looking the situation over, Rick said, “When diesel went through the roof, we got robbed, again and again and again, I've even had these locks sawed off twice, so this is barely a deterrent. The pump still works and the tank is nearly full right now, five gallons won't make a dent in it.” He topped off their blue container and even lugged it back to the truck for them.
Bill and John stayed around long enough for all of them to get in their cars and head out to the main road together, they didn't see any other zombies creeping around the area.
Chapter 7
Max woke up at three in the morning, coming instantly awake even though he had been asleep less than four hours. Earlier he had taken the first watch with his son Nick. Every adult watched with a child to help keep them awake, for the most part this had worked out well, but Jessica at only seven years old tended to fall asleep unless she was on the last watch in the morning. Sitting up quietly in the bed he was sharing with Steward he looked over at Tom who was looking out the window. They had taken one of the queen sized beds out of the other motel room and moved it into this one. There was barely enough room for the three beds along one wall, but no one wanted to split the group into two. With two people up watching that left six people to sleep, which worked out perfectly with three beds. The adults always slept on the outside with the kids in the middle, when Max woke up that meant that he and Stewart were closest to the window and Amelia was next to the wall with three kids between them.
Max's head was buzzing, that is what woke him up, he had noticed a day ago that whenever there were zombies around this happened. Erin was sharing Tom's watch and touched the man's arm when she saw Max sit up and check the time on his his cell phone. The illumination was enough to light the entire room in a dim glow and Max tucked the phone in his pocket quickly so he would not wake anyone else. Tom came over and whispered, “What is wrong?”
“I think we are being watched.”
“We haven't seen anything moving. It rained a while ago. Would that set you off? My grandfather could always tell when a storm was coming in, said it was the changing air pressure or something.”
Max shook his head, then said “No, I don't think it was that. I think someone is close by, watching us maybe.” He could see his companions only because they were silhouetted by the very small amount of light creeping in from the outside.
Max eased himself off of the bed, Stewart came awake instantly and had a gun pointed towards the window a moment later. “What?” she asked in a voice that denied the fact that she had been asleep seconds before, “Not your shift yet Max, it is too early.”
“I know, I just woke up, my head is buzzing again. I think something is out there.”
“You see anything Tom? Erin?”
They shook their heads 'no', which was barely visible to Max in the dim light seeping in from outside. Max just shrugged.
“Okay, so you want to check it out?”
“Yeah, we better. Stewart said to trust my guts. And my guts say something is coming our way. Maybe a slow something, maybe a fast something, maybe lots of somethings.”
“Let's hope for one big one. I don't like spending the ammo.”
Max got out of bed and pulled on his jeans, Stewart got up as well, pulling on some khaki shorts and flip flops. She put on her heavy police belt and holstered her pistol, then picked up the shotgun up off of the bed where it had been laying beside her.
“You are going to shoot your foot off sleeping with it like that.”
“No. I had the safety on and there wasn't a shell in the chamber. Get your shotgun. Are we going out to meet them or not?”
Max went to the window and cautiously eased the drapes open with one hand, his other held the stock of the shotgun. “I've got nothing specific from here, I have to go out and look around a little. If I had to guess I would say it is coming from the West.”
“Tom you better wake the others, better to do it like this than with a shotgun blast. Get Cory and Jessica into the bathroom, and have Nick and Erin out in from of the door behind you and Amelia.”
“Okay.” said Tom as he started waking the other four up. Erin, helped get Jessica and Cory into the bathroom, the boy went despite his protests that he was as old as Nick and could shoot a gun too. Once the others were set up Stewart unlocked and eased open the hotel door. Tom pulled the curtains open until there was about a foot of space to look through the broken window, he stood back far enough to stay in the shadows, but close enough to watch Max and Stewart as they went outside.
Stewart held the door open and Max went first, trying to locate precisely where the buzz was coming from. He checked to either side of the door and then moved around to the front of the van and Paul's wrecker, which had been backed towards the hotel doors. Once clear of the immediate building Max rotated around and looked at the
