Chapter 24

We were going over the center part of town, not seeing any movement when little Sarah spoke up.

"I think I know why they all left the truck stop where we were."

I turned around in my seat and looked at her before I spoke; "Honey, if you have any ideas we would sure like to hear them."

"Well, when we drove in this morning, we sat on the top of the bridge, watching the truck stop for a couple of hours before my daddy decided it was safe. About the time the sun came up, we started hearing a train whistle going off. After a little while of hearing it, hundreds of those things started down the road like they were trying to find out where it was coming from. They came from everywhere it seemed like. The road was full of them and they were all headed in the direction where we are going now. Daddy thought it would be safe after they all left, so we drove down to get some water and food. We didn't see any of them outside so Daddy and Mommy ran into the store. Well I told you what I heard, and they didn't come back. I stayed hidden in the camper until you showed up and took me with you. I won't see Mommy and Daddy again, will I?"

I was at a loss for a moment but inside I knew I had to tell her the truth. "No, Sarah, they didn't make it. But you are safe now and I won't let anything happen to you. Where did you and your mom and dad come from, before you got here?"

"We lived in Deming until everyone started getting sick. Thom, what are those things and why did they kill my mom and dad?"

I looked at Puddles and he just shrugged and at me. I looked back at Sarah and decided to tell her everything I knew about it. I did, and she listened to me go through the whole story before she spoke again.

"Mom and Dad and I used to watch that TV show about zombies and Daddy always said something like that couldn't happen, but I guess it did. If they aren't like us, I hope all of them die and I get to see it."

She unfastened her seat belt and climbed in my lap, crying against my shoulder. I looked over at Puddles and he just gave me a sad smile before he pointed below us.

We were coming up on a pair of truck stops and from where we were at about five hundred feet, I could see what looked like thousands of eighteen wheelers. They were parked everywhere I looked. It looked like a large parking lot at some huge trucking company. If every truck had just one driver, there had to be thousands of those things wandering around from the two truck stops. When we got over the first truck stop I only saw just a few of them and as we went lower they didn't increase in numbers. The ones that were here were looking up at us and even from as high as we were, I could see the blank look in their eyes. They were just like the ones I had already disposed of. We hovered about a hundred feet up for at least five minutes but we didn't see any more of them come out. I pointed to the other truck stop and we did the same routine with the same results. I could hear Puddles reporting to base what we were seeing and I heard someone tell him to circle around and try to find out where they all had gone. Then it hit me. I remembered what Sarah had said earlier.

"Fly over to the train yards to the south of here. Sarah said she kept hearing a train whistle blowing. Maybe they all went to see what was happening there. Go up to about three hundred feet so we have a good view of the train yards."

Sarah had twisted in my lap so she could see out the front. Just as we topped the last building and the train yards came into sight, I heard a quick indrawn gasp from her. Within a few seconds I heard Puddles say; "Holy Shit, will you look at that!"

The question of where they all were was answered. There were thousands of them on either side of a train engine and I could see it was running from the black smoke coming out of it. There were two or three flatcars behind the engine and there were wall to wall zombies on them, seemingly waiting for the train to move. Others were trying to get on and it almost seemed like the ones already on them were pushing off the ones trying to get on.

Before I could tell Puddles to call in the gunships, he was already reporting what we were seeing and asking for help from the fort. One of those things had to have been an engineer because one engine was running. If they got the train moving, there would be no safe towns anywhere along the tracks 'cause they would be able to move at will.