“I know. I know. I just didn’t expect it to go on this long. I guess I won’t have a choice when I get to Sixteen.”
“No you won’t.”
“You know!” Hannah hollered. “You all keep whispering and talking like that, Leah will get jealous and no amount of mice is gonna stop her from going nuts.”
“Oh, quit that,” I told her, then looked to Diana. “Can that happen?”
“I don’t know that it ever—”
I held up my hand to silence her, then whispered. “Shh.”
We had arrived near the interchange that would take us to the interstate. There we would head west for two miles then catch another back road.
However, something was wrong. I not only smelled it, I heard it. Once all talking stopped and the clonking of Mary’s hooves were no longer heard, the shuffling and groaning cut through the silence.
Unmistakably, it was the sound of the dead.
“Vee,” I said.
“Calvin,” Hannah whispered. “That sounds like a million of them.”
“It does sound like a lot,” Diana said. “Where though?”
After telling them to stay put, I followed the sounds. I crept through the brush on the side of the highway but didn’t need to make it far to see what was happening.
Hundreds of Vee swarmed the road. They moved about aimlessly, back and forth. It reminded me of a concert crowd, just mobbed there.
Diana’s one word of, “Here” made my jump from my skin. I grabbed my chest as she handed me a pair of binoculars.
“Jesus, you scared me.”
“Sorry. Take a look. It goes just a quarter mile both ways. Trucks got them blocked in.”
I saw what she had described. I hated that I saw them closer, some of them wandered about while eating something bloody. “How does that happen?”
“Someone did this to block the exit, I guess.”
I handed her the binoculars and turned.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I want to look at our map.”
Still remaining quiet, I made my way over to the cart, holding my fingers to my lips as a sign of ‘quiet’ to Hannah.
I pulled out the map and spread it out.
Hannah, without a sound moved her lips to ask, “What’s going on?”
I pointed to where we were and spoke in a whisper, “Vee. Lots.”
“What do you mean?”
“Try to keep the baby quiet while I figure this out,” I said. “The Vee are blocking I-64 for about a quarter mile. They’re penned in by trucks.”
Diana returned, peering at the map. “Can we go around?”
“We could. It would add a day’s journey especially if we backtrack and try the exit here…” I pointed. “Take that road for a while. It’s all the wrong direction. Getting on the main highway is a straight shot back to Old Sixty and that’s where we need to be…”
“So get on the highway,” Hannah said.
“Hannah, there are hundreds,” I explained. “Right here is the only place.”
“It’s a trap. Someone wants you to go around for a reason.”
I nodded. “A reason, yes. I think just to keep that side of the highway safe.”
“No, Calvin, I have a bad feeling. If the Vee are there, the only way to get them is to lead them. So lead them out. And why are they there? You know Vee look for food, right. I highly doubt animals are such a plenty that the Vee don’t need to move.”
“What are you saying Hannah? Someone is feeding them?” I asked.
“Yep. I say we play pied piper. They don’t move fast. Heck, I’ll do it. I’ll go make noise, have them follow me. Once it’s clear you get across.”
“No.” I shook my head. “If anyone is doing that, it’s me.”
“This is ridiculous,” Diana said. “Look we don’t need to backtrack.” She showed me on the map. “We’re on old sixty now, right? We need to be on old sixty to get to Sixteen.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said. “But old sixty loops up, too many hills and winding roads. Getting on I-64 cuts that all out.
“Hear me out,” Diana said. “We stay on old sixty. It crosses over I-64 right where we are.” She ran her finger. “Take it two miles, use the 1145 down here to get on I-64. Really we don’t lose anything.”
“Wow, I didn’t even see that.”
“Yeah,” Hannah said with disbelief and lifted the map. “How the heck did you see that little bitty road? Kinda impressive. I thought old people couldn’t see.”
I quickly folded the map. “Let’s get going. We need to be quiet though. When we go on the overpass, we don’t need them to hear us.”
“Calvin,” Hannah grabbed my hand. “I really think this is a bad idea.”
“Hannah,” I said passively. “Listen. We’re just running perpendicular. It’s fine. Looks like only a couple miles to this 1145, then we’ll be where we need to be. Okay?”
Hannah reluctantly agreed and continued on.
The highway was on flat land and a road leading to the fairgrounds was our original plan. That would take us to the highway. That was tossed out the window. Diana actually had a good back up route.
Leah didn’t follow us, she went directly to the highway. Maybe she sensed food there, or something.
Seeing the Vee blockade from the overpass gave me a whole different perspective. It was obviously done on purpose. Trucks and vehicles made a fence of a large area, keeping them tight in there. I wondered why anyone would do that.
Then again, the town of Grayson was on the map. It was a small town, maybe they were all alive, they wanted to keep safe. Or maybe the Vee in the blockade were their loved ones and like me, they couldn’t let go.
I didn’t know and I didn’t care. I just wanted to get going. We were close, so close.
Once we crossed the overpass, there was a short section of Old Sixty that ran ridiculously close to the Vee bull pen on the highway. It was a short section and by the time we had the coverage of trees between us and the highway, we had passed the blockade.
I noticed that the horse was stronger. The next day I would try to use the cart to bring us all to Sanctuary Sixteen. If I timed it right, and we left early in the morning, stopping to give Mary breaks every couple hours, we’d be there by nightfall.
I looked at my watch, it was pushing five o’clock, and the sun would set soon. I figured we would stop once we hit that 1145, which I learned by looking closer at the map, was Aden Road. It had an underpass, which was a great place to stop for the night.
I guess it was about a mile before the underpass when I spotted the Value Store eighteen-wheeler. I slowed down my walk and was apprehensive about moving forward. Was it another Vee blockade? Then I spotted the man on top of the truck. He held a rifle, but didn’t aim it. He lifted it in a wave and I continued walking.
“What is this, Calvin?” Hannah asked. “See, I told you it was a trap.”
As soon as I neared the truck, I saw what it blocked. Simple one lane road, led to two houses and a small white church with a Norman Rockwell steeple.
A few tents were set up on the land. There was a pig in a small pen and chickens roamed freely about.
I was curious about the place, but I had learned my lesson about stopping in populated areas outside of Sanctuary Sixteen.
I returned the wave to the man and kept going, only to be stopped by another man who came from around the truck.
A strong built man in his fifties with salt and pepper hair blocked the road. He did so almost arrogantly.
I zipped up my jacket so he didn’t see the Glock in the waist of my pants. “We’re just passing through. We aren’t stopping,” I said. “We would have been on the highway but it’s blocked.”