"The jeep isn't that far away." The two had discussed the benefit of driving it and decided that walking would be more discrete, so they had parked it above the high tide mark on the beach, not too far from where they were now.
"Definitely the jeep, that thing is awesome. I wish I had owned one before all this went down. I'll solidify my plans when we see what we are up against, but I think we will head south from here." Katie trailed her finger down route 1 along the coast. "We'll just stick to the coast until we see an island with a house on it, then find a boat and go over."
"Sounds so easy. Maybe they will have their own nuclear plant to provide us with unlimited power and a good boat for fishing so we won't starve." Randy was smiling when he started talking, but his face quickly turned to puzzlement.
"What?"
"I…I, just thought of something disturbing."
"Yeah? Like French kissing your sister?"
"No! Something I hadn't realized before. Now all the pieces are fitting into place. Katie…I figured it out…I" Randy faded from view, winking out entirely in a few seconds.
"Randy! Don't you leave me! Godamn it! What good is an imaginary friend if they keep popping in an out all the damned time? Fuck." Frustrated Katie gathered up her equipment, which consisted of the duffel bag, her rifle and the map and started for the front door.
The sound of a car coming alerted her as she got close to the busted down door. "Shit!" Katie knew the zombies could see heat or life force and the best way to avoid their gaze was to get under ground or get a lot of walls, trees, or other vegetation between you and them. Backtracking, she ran out the back door into the back yard. The yard was well groomed with sloping mounds and two very tall willow trees. Katie ran to the highest of the mounds and put it between her and the street by lying down in the tall grass. The steady sound of a vehicle chugging on the street outside let her know when the car had passed. Once it seemed to be beyond her location Katie got up and ran towards the fence to see if she could catch a glimpse of it.
It turned out to be two vehicles, not one; a large cargo van and a pickup truck, both white, but appearing drab in the overcast light. Both vehicles turned the corner a few blocks further down and Katie nodded, "Yeah, that fucking figures."
She silently counted out the street posts between where she was and where the vehicles made the turn and then consulted her map before swearing again. "Looks like our boy is still active." The count of where the vehicles had turned was equal to the number of streets Katie had to walk down before turning, meaning the vans were going the same place she was. Probably.
Chapter 36 — Ruben
'Go right.' The voices whispered and Ruben turned right where he thought the voices wanted him to go. He had left the others behind without a look back and jogged down a side street into a business district.
The 'voice' wasn't single it seemed like there were a dozen people saying the same words into Ruben's head when he listened. It was like listening to a choir; everyone was synced perfectly when they spoke, but the voices together were greater than any of them were alone. Ruben had been living with the voices ever since he had plunged his knife into the top of Ella's head back in Chicago. He hadn't been following their advice until recently; most of what they told him to do was just plain crazy. Now he thought he had them figured out.
Following the instructions Ruben turned into a small diner; it had a bar with built-in stools along one side and booths along the other. 'Grab the jacket. Keep moving through the kitchen. Out into the alley, you can rest there.'
Ruben reached out and snagged the blue windbreaker that was hanging from a peg next to one of the booths with one hand and continued moving through the kitchen, out into the alley behind the eatery. The alley was deserted and he leaned heavily back on the wall, folding up the jacket to stuff in his rucksack.
'Or do I put this on?' he inquired of the angels in his head.
'Dump the body armor, fold your coat up. Open the backpack.'
Ruben took off his outerwear and removed his body armor. In truth, it was a relief to take it off, the road rash hadn't been good to it, the trauma plate over his chest had been slipping around as he ran, threatening to fall out entirely with every sudden twist and turn. Ruben looked at the bomb; it had weathered the slide well, showing only a few scuffs and scrapes from the incident. He examined the top of the pack and slowly loosened the straps holding it closed. With some trepidation he gently lifted the top of the heavy material and stared inside the bag. He started laughing. His mirth got the better of him and he sat down hard upon his body armor, still clutching the bomb in both hands.
When he finally regained his composure he sat the bag on the ground and started pulling the items out of the top compartment. Inside was a small metal box lined with closed cell blue foam, the box fit inside the bag precisely. Stacked inside this container were cans of beer. At the very bottom of this compartment was a sacks and what looked like an ordinary brick, Ruben pulled both of them out. He pulled open the drawstrings on the sack and opened it up to see that it was filled with sand.
"Shit. We've been carrying this forty pound bag around with us and it's full of beer and sand?" This was not quite true, the bottom of the bag was a separate compartment entirely, "So if I open that I'll find, what? Two liters of whisky?"
'Just the bomb, Ruben. Leave it alone.'
"So it works then?"
'Yes. It has once already.' the voices whispered in his head.
"Why the extra weight?"
'Psychological, if it weighs more soldiers think it works better.'
"Really?" the voices didn't answer and Ruben hadn't thought they would; they didn't tend to speak if he questioned what they had already told him.
Ruben cracked one of the beers; it was lukewarm but otherwise tasted fine. He finished off the can, packed his fatigue jacket into the top of the pack along with a couple of the remaining beers and pulled on the windbreaker. The wind was picking up and he appreciated the lighter covering. "I don't even have a gun." No one answered, but Ruben kept thinking out loud, "I can nuke you back to the stone-age or run or maybe knife you. But not shoot you."
Shrugging Ruben lifted the pack up and headed down the alley, the voices didn't tell him which way to go so he guessed he was doing okay on his own. When he reached the street he looked both ways and saw a bright blue Nissan Leaf parked on the street. Sighing, he reached into his new pockets and his hands touched a key ring. As he walked to the car he pulled the keys out and heard the doors unlock when he was a couple feet away.
"Not even a proper key, just this fob thingy. Give me a good set of keys any day." Ruben climbed into the car and put the backpack in the front passenger's seat. Looking over the dash he didn't see how to turn the car on. There wasn't anywhere to put the key fob into, like a normal key would have. There was just a button where a key would normally be inserted into the ignition. Cautiously he pressed the button and an amber ring around its edge glowed softly. With another sigh, he tucked the fob back into his pocket.
"It is on? No fricking way to tell I guess." The car looked like an automatic style with just a simple shifter to switch from park to drive. Ruben pulled the stick to 'D' and was startled when a soft voice chided him to put his seatbelt on.
"Today, we risk it." he said out loud.
Pressing on the gas pedal, the car silently moved forward. 'This,' thought Ruben, 'isn't nearly so bad as I thought. I wonder if I should even think of it as a 'gas' pedal? It's not gas powered. So quiet, like riding a bike, only with no effort. Maybe those tree huggers have something after all.'