America The Dead Book Two: The Road To Somewhere by Lindsey Rivers

coming back to
life? Come on. Really?”
    “ Didn't say I believed it,” Jeff
said.
    “ No... But do you?” Kate asked.
She looked back around the clearing. Nest, her mind whispered.
There did seem to be an orderliness to it that was human, not
animal. There seemed to be an area that was flattened down where
someone may have slept.
    “ No,” Jeff said. “I didn't believe
in that kind of shit at all. I thought maybe it was someone sick,
real sick... nearly dead... out of their head, and so they ran away
when help came.” He shrugged. He looked over at Mike.
    “ Go on,” Mike said. “Jeff and I
talked about this. With the stuff that's been going on, us making
our decisions, I didn't think we should get right into it.” He
looked around the clearing. “But this... “ He shook his head. “Tell
them what you told me, Jeff.”
    “ I said I didn't
believe in Zombies... Un-Dead... Walking dead, living dead. None of
it. And I didn't. Then one day I was checking out this building. It
smelled bad... like this, but a building. I didn't connect it. But
I stepped into a room, and there was a body, dead. I swear to
Christ that woman was dead, missing part of her neck, body glued
into the blood on the floor. Dead . And I nearly turned and left.
And then she sat up... saw me... hissed at me. She hissed at me. And then
she took off. And I mean took off, fast. She could move.“ He
shrugged. “That's it. I didn't believe. Not until then.” he
finished quietly.
    “ Don't matter if they believe in
you,” Patty said quietly.
    “ Oh come on, Pats,” Ronnie said.
“For Christ's sake.”
    “ Could be real,” Kate said.
“Doesn't take much, government shit, some sort of chemical
change.”
    “ Please,” Ronnie said.
    “ Please? Then why did the C.D.C.
issue warnings about it? If it's bullshit, why would they do
that?”
    “ Katie, that was
a joke,” Ronnie said. “When I just said it, it was a joke. I was joking.”
    “ Ronnie, don't fuckin' call me
Katie. And it wasn't a joke. An organization like that doesn't
joke.”
    “ Sorry,” Ronnie looked
embarrassed. “Sorry. But you don't really think that.”
    “ I didn't say I did.” The fire
bled out of her eyes. “Looks like people camped out here though...
not an animal.”
    Mike cleared his throat. “Whatever it was
doesn't matter. I saw that whole thing too. Does anyone remember
back in Watertown? It's in my journal. I can't remember the date. I
heard Airplanes in the night, woke up the next day there was this
blue shit all over the snow.”
    “ And?” Ronnie asked.
    “ And, I don't know. Does anyone?
Can anyone say this wasn't a pack of wolves? Wolves do this. They
act a lot like humans. They do. I'm not ready to say we have
Zombies running around. But, well, ignoring shit is not good.
Better to look at the big picture. I'm not saying it is; I'm not
saying it isn't. But, what was that shit about? Why spray that shit
after all that had happened? What was that?”
    “ I remember that blue snow. I
didn't hear the planes. I remember the snow though. Could be they
are real,” Kate said.
    “ But. Never
mind. I jumped. I am sorry. But, fuck, a thing like that. What the
hell could we do against a thing like that?” Ronnie
said.
    Silence held for a few minutes. The gloom began
to get to them. It seemed twenty degrees cooler out of the
sunlight.
    “ It was my fault. I shouldn't have
made that crack,” Patty said.
    “ I got spooked, I guess,” Jeff
said.
    “ Doesn't matter,” Mike said.
“Let's get out of here.”
    “ Shouldn't we bury the body?”
Patty asked.
    Mike stopped. “Ronnie, go back and get us ready
to go. Jeff and I will take care of this.”
    “ The guy's been dead for awhile,”
Ronnie said.
    “ Yeah. But I'm
going to do it anyway. Go on back and get us ready. Talk to
Bob. Babe ,” he
looked at Kate. She turned her eyes to him. Patty was still curled
into her side. “Okay?”
    Kate nodded. Patty looked up and nodded too.
“Just scared