“Later,” Dan said putting a finger to his lips for her to be silent. They both could just make out a low far-off moaning sound coming out of the darkness.

  “Help me hook this up,” Dan said. Struggling to pull the tow arm of the trailer towards the trailer hitch. Loren helped him hooked the trailer up quickly getting on their way as the moaning sound started to get louder.

  Taddish had an amused smile on her face at the sight of Dan when he had sat down in the passenger seat of the cart dripping slim and water. The only traveled six hundred feet down the road. As Loren leaned over from the backseat to start checking him.

  “Are you hurt. Did it bite you,” she started question him.

  “No, I am fine,” Dan said sounding frustrated. Trying to make Loren stop. Loren looked out into the darkness spotting a large wood farmhouse appearing out of the darkness to one side of the road. She motioned to Taddish who slowed the cart. Dan slowly turned in his seat to look at them with a slightly annoyed look showing on his face.

  “I need to make sure you received no injuries,” Loren said sternly when she saw his look.

  “It is late and we have lost to much time tonight, we are not going to make it past Clarksdale tonight,” Taddish added carefully. Dan turned from them to look at the large farmhouse he knew they were right so letting out a deep sigh finally said.

  “Stay here I will signal you when I finish checking out the house,” he said moving towards the house. Missing the smiles of victory on their faces as he moved off.

  Dan jogged up to the house from the street his feet squishing in his wet shoes. Pulling his forty-five again cocking the hammer back he approached the front door that was slightly open. He pushed it open with his foot having brought his hand with the flashlight under his hand with the forty-five that way the gun pointed at wherever the beam of the flashlight shone. Sweeping the beam across the room, he could see overturned chairs and other furniture as he made his way through the lower rooms of the house to find them clear. He made sure to lock the door to the basement before he braced a chair up against the doorknob, no need to search it if he could secure it. He made his way up a wood staircase to search the upperpart of the house. Finding the conditions like the rest of the house in ruins and free of any tenants. Dan moved to the window facing the road to see it gave them a good view of the road; he flashed the light out the window for them to bring the cart over.

  “The house is clear,” he called down. Watching Taddish pulled the cart down the driveway listing to the wheels crunching loudly in the night on the gravel. She maneuvered the cart and trailers close to the house near a wood barrel filled with fresh rainwater.

  “There is a room upstairs with a fireplace that will give us a clear view of the road,” Dan said removing the wheelchair from the backseat for Taddish. It took them a few minutes to get Taddish and her wheelchair upstairs to the room with the fireplace. Leaving her to start a fire with some wood and broken furniture they had found in the room as Dan and Loren went down stairs again. He watched Loren go into the kitchen with his spare flashlight as he stopped on the stairs and removed a spool of fishing string. Plastic push tacks and a small bell he remove a piece of fabric from so it could work from a pouch on his belt. All the while listing to Loren moving around in the kitchen searching for something, He was just about to ask what she was doing when she came out carrying several large metal cooking pots. They looked puzzled at what the other was doing but kept their silence as they worked. Loren went outside with the pots as Dan pushed some thumbtacks into the wall on the staircase, as Loren returned carrying one pot filled with rainwater up stairs.

  Dan finished pushing the tacks into the wall as Loren returned to fetch another large pot of water. Leaving the second pot at the top of the stairs as she went getting a third. She had just passed by when Dan started unwinding the clear fishing line from the spool moving it between the tacks.

  “What are you doing,” Dan asked as he looked up the stairs at Loren, she looked down at him.

  “I could ask you the same question,” she replied.

  “I asked first,” he, said with a smile.

  “If you must know we need water to work the toilet up here and for you to clean up,” she finished smugly. Dan shook his head he had to admit she was a fast learner.

  “Now you,” she said pointing at the string Dan was tying to the bell.

  “Simple, anyone or zombie tries coming up the stairs will,” he said as he pulled the string causing the bell to ring.

  “Will let us know they are here,” he told her as he moved up the stairs toward the room that had a soft flickering firelight coming from the open door. Loren put up her hand stopping him.

  “No offense but can you change in there,” she said pointing to another room Dan looked at her puzzled.

  “You are starting to smell bad from that bog you fell in. I will get your pack and I have put a pot of water in there already,” Loren said with an apologetic smile on her face. He said nothing but chuckled slightly as he went into the room. Setting his flashlight down on an old dresser that was missing it drawers before he had removed his Blackhawk holster with the forty-five and placed it next to the flashlight. Loren reappeared with his gray day pack.

  “I will be back in a few minutes to give you a checkup,” she told him from the door holding his daypack out for him to take. Dan stopped to sniff himself before he wrinkled his nose, he did stink. He removed his clothes and Point-Blank C-series white body armor, drying the armor as much as he could with a pillow case he found in the room. Before dipping the pillow case into the of pot water to clean it before he wiped his head and face off. Before moving on to the rest of his body, using a second pillow case to dry himself. He managed to put on the only other pair of underwear he had with him when Loren entered the room causing his face to go red as he grabbed for his clean pants.

  Dan was unsure of what embarrassed him more the fact that he was standing in front of Loren in his underwear. Or the fact she did not care picking up the flashlight from the table she started to shine it on him.

  “Did you notice any injuries,” she asked him in what he assumed was her best professional tone as she shined the light up and down his legs before moving to his arms and torso.

  “No,” he managed to stammer still holding his pants. She finished satisfied with his answers and started to remove one of those plastic hypodermic pens from her vest the same she had used on the solider that had been bit by the zombie.

  “What is that for,” he asked sounding slightly nervous.

  “Just in case you swallowed any water from that bog,” Loren said as she moved behind him.

  “Do not move,” she directed. Dan would swear he was glowing red as Loren tugged on his underwear pulling them down. To expose part of his butt check before he felt a sharp pin poke him then the pressure of the medicine as it injected into him.

  “There all done,” she said as she returned his underwear to the proper spot before she left the room. Dan put on his clean pants, socks and brown hiking shoes. Leaving his body armor to dry to set cleaning his forty-five, boots, socks and other clothes in the pot of water as best he could. Dan felt relieved to see Taddish asleep on the floor as he entered the warm room putting his wet clothes by the fire to dry; Loren was sitting in a chair by the window.

  “I will take the first watch,” Loren told him quietly from the chair.

  Loren and Taddish awoke the next morning to the smell of bread cooking; they saw Dan by the fireplace cooking.

  “Morning,” they told him to let him know they were up.

  “Morning, I hope you like tortillas and beans for breakfast,” he said. Showing off his cleaned but stained shirt he had put back on over his body armor last night after it dried by the fire. The tortillas were misshapen but good as they ate breakfast. After Dan removed the fishing line and bell from the stairs and helped Taddish down stairs to the front porch, he busied himself setting the batteries to charge on the cart. Loren had come rushing down the stairs and out the front door .

  “There is something coming down the road,” she said urgently as she pointed northward on the road they had traveled last night. Dan moved a few feet away from the house to get a better view of the road; he wished he had taken some binoculars from the Humvees before he left.

  Looking in the pointed out direction he noticed the movement from down the road just at the edge of his vision, there were several large trucks he thought coming down the road from the north. Dan kept watching as he moved back to the porch picking up his Colt collapsible stock M sixteen-assault rifle.

  “Should we go inside,” Loren asked him.

  “No, they will see the cart anyway. But with us out here they might think there are more of us inside,” he answered quietly as he stood there still watching the movement in the distance come closer. Dan could make out that they were large trucks.

  “Trucker’s,” Dan said with a slight smile now.

  “We might be able to buy passage home,” he told Loren and Taddish who looked at him expectedly as the big rigs were getting closer. In the bright morning light, Dan could just make out the glint of sunlight on chrome from the truck leading the others.

  This caused an uneasy feeling in the pit of Dan’s stomach for some reason. The three of them watched as the sleek baby blue block like truck with the long rectangular hood. Sunlight gleaming off the chrome grill and squared off cab with sleeper unit flank by chrome exhaust pipes running up the side of the cab. Started slowing down on the small road before pulling to stop in front of the farmhouse. Smiles breaking out on all their faces as a red haired young woman stepped out of the baby blue Peterbilt truck while looking at Dan. She had a smile on her face before turning back and saying into the block like cab of the truck.

  “They’re all here like you said they would be mother,” she said with a slight southern drawl.

  “I think we will be home this afternoon,” Dan said shaking his head. Trying to ignore the uneasy feeling as it rose from his stomach as he looked at Loren and Taddish now wearing big smiles also.

  EPILOGUE

  Dan stared unfocused as he watched the puffy white clouds as they moved slowly in the blue-sky pass Sandra’s tinted office window. His unfinished lunch on her desk.

  “Commander Hudson heard a report of some trolls blocking the road near Clarksdale,” Sandra said between bites of her sandwich.

  “So did I but, I guess they did not want to mess with the size of the convoy. Because we had no trouble with them managing to get back here in a couple of hours,” Dan said still looking out the window.

  “What did it cost you for the passage back with that cart and trailers,” Sandra asked him while picking up her glass of water. Dan turned from the window.

  “Mabel was going to do it free after the help we gave Larry and Katrina but I still gave them one of the Colt assault rifles with some extra ammunition. Mostly for them to help Taddish get to her family in Florida,” he said absently.

  “I don’t need to know those details,” Sandra said putting her glass of water down. Dan smiled at that.

  “Do you know what was up with Sarah and Katrina the first day they were together. I thought they were going to get in to a fight,” Dan asked Sandra, who just sighed before slowly shaking her head smiling.

  “You have to figure that out on your own,” she laughed looking at him. He looked puzzled at her comment.

  “By the way have you spoken to John,” she asked rather suddenly with a serious to her voice. A grimace crossed Dan’s face as he remembered yesterday. He had slipped quietly through a set of wooden doubled doors that had a sign above them the read Council Chamber. He had entered a large gray auditorium style room that was mainly rows of chairs separated by a small open space with two table each one holding two chairs. One table empty the other holding Mr. Pennington in his loud Hawaiian print shirt. Between the two tables stood a small podium facing a low decorative wood rail with the uniform figure of Captain Jones. Speaking in her cold unfriendly voice in to a microphone mounted on the podium. The low polished wood rail separated a long table at which Sandra and the rest of the city Council sat at. The only person who noticed Dan enter glanced in his direction was a small framed man with piercing gray eyes who seemingly took an interest in Dan as he entered.

  “As stated in my report,” Captain. Jones spoke on. “Dan died when he broke and ran from a group of zombies we encountered when we reached our destination. He ran right into an even larger group. If he would have stayed with us, he would have survived,” Captain Jones droned on.

  A flash of anger crossed Dan's face as he yelled.

  “You lying bitch,” his shout caused Sandra and the rest of the Council to look up in shock. Mr. Pennington snapped around in his seat the only person who froze at Dan speaking was Captain Jones. Without even a conscious thought, he was pulling the forty- five autoloader from his holster taking aim at Captain Jones. Dan had a terrifying flashback to the roof in Memphis. As he found himself torn off his feet as the gun he was aiming seemingly flew from his hand without effort as he headed upward as he started to struggle when he heard John's voice telling him.

  “Calm down,” as he pulled him from the Council chamber.

  “Were good, we talked when he gave me my forty-five back outside the Council chamber. He said if he had known what Captain Jones had done before I busted in and tried to shoot her interrupting her story on how I had died. He might not have stopped me. But he said it would have gone badly for the town if I had shot her right then and there,” Dan said a little bitterly.

  “It would have been trouble,” Sandra said still serious while watching him. Dan noticed this.

  “We’re good, but if Captain Jones sticks around as part of the forward base you allowed them to have, there will be trouble between us,” he said looking her right in the eyes.

  “Well the area of town we are allowing them in was not in the best shape before the plague struck. They will be required to check in and out of town since their base will be outside the checkpoints,” she told him watching his expression. “In addition, Mr. Pennington said there will be a formal investigation, especially after Doctor McGee showed up alive with you and resigned from her post with the government. Their loss is the town’s gain since she is opening a clinic here,” Sandra replied as the serious looked left her face for a smile.

  “Right, an investigation,” Dan said rolling his eyes.

  “Dan I know you do not believe in the government. Especially after how much time you spent my father. If we ever expect to get to anywhere near life before the plague, we will need them,” Sandra replied watching Dan’s still rolling eyes.

  “But to change subjects, I am surprised you asked for the house across the street from me,” Sandra said looking at him expectantly.

  “Why, when I am outworking, I will know you will take care of it,” he said once again turning his gaze to the window.

  “Working,” Sandra asked him. Dan was silent for a second before he answered.

  “Even with the stuff I brought back and I empty every cache of supplies me and Manny have. I do not think I have enough to live the rest of my life without working.”

  “What will you do for work,” Sandra asked a little concerned. Once again, Dan started thinking about the future.

  “What I have always done, salvage work or Mabel said she might have some jobs she could use my help with,” Dan said as he watched the clouds through the window. Maybe the government can rebuild from the aftermath. Bringing them out of the ruins he thought, until then he would live as he always had day-by-day.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Daniel Smith was born in Orange Ca and grew up in Orange County Ca. After a tour in the United States Marine Corp, he entered collage getting a degree in electronics. After 20 years in the semiconductor industry as a repair technician, he took up writing as a hobby.

 

 

  Daniel Smith, The Aftermath Trilogy (Book 1): The Aftermath [Out of the Ruins]

 

 

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