Chapter 3

(Shauna's Dream)

"All is good," Shauna said, "We saved two."

Once the little car made it on the highway, he noticed that the needle was close to empty, and he had to find another vehicle with gas soon. He wanted to find a bigger car, a car with a little more space because the Amish girl's didn't wear any fragrances whatsoever. The little car smelled like pure underarm funk; but it wasn't just Ruth and Tina with the lingering stench; everybody needed a shower. His body hadn't seen a real shower in weeks, and it bothered him because infected blood splattered his face several times. He tried to keep the contaminated blood away from any cuts, but he only knew one rule to the game: if bitten by the infected, you turned. That was the rule and that rule was the law of the land.

Shauna fell into a deep sleep; and when she had awoken, she mentioned something about a young, female soldier with a burned face who had the will of ten men. She believed that God had his hands on her, and kept her safe when the walkers overwhelmed her military unit. Morgan didn't believe any of her nonsense about God, but she even said that Ruth and Tina were alive because of God's will.

"There are thousands of souls that need saving," she whispered softly. "That's your job, Morgan."

"My job?"

"That's the job God gave you," she snapped. "It doesn't matter that you don't believe."

"I believe," Ruth said.

Several cars were scattered on the highway, and only with a little faith one would have gas and keys. He parked next to an old minivan, and it had a full tank with the keys in the ignition. It appeared to have four good tires, but a dead body sat in the passenger seat. It had a bullet in its head. It was a woman in her mid thirties, and the site of her disturbed Morgan because she was about the same age as his wife. She reminded him of his wife.

"Let me get my gloves," he said as he opened the trunk of his little car. The military black gloves were enough protection when he grabbed the decaying body, and placed it on the ground. Duane and the ladies took all the crap out of the car, put it in the minivan, and Morgan tried to start it, but it wouldn't start. He popped the trunk, looked inside, and realized that the battery cable wasn't attached to the battery. It looked as if it had wiggled lose, but he wasn't sure. He pulled out a small wrench, tightened the cable, and had hoped that would be enough to get the car started.

"Mr. Morgan! Walkers!" Ruth screamed as she pointed to the walkers creeping over the hill. Shauna stepped out of the minivan with her rifle, and said, "Hurry up. I only have five rounds left."

"Just a second," he said, "I almost got it."

"They're getting closer," Duane said as he pumped his shotgun.

"We're gonna die," Tina said.

Morgan closed the lid, and Shauna shot a zombie that stood almost directly behind him.

"Shit! I didn't see him," he said as he hopped in the driver's seat. He turned the key, but couldn't get a good grip on it. His sweaty hands slipped several times when he went to turn the key.

"Hurry, Dad!"

"Come on!" Morgan screamed as the minivan started up. He put it in drive, drove over two zombies, and rolled down the highway.

The evening drew to a finish as the minivan crossed the Ohio border, and the fuel gauge neared the empty mark, which caused Morgan a lot of mental grief. It was dark, full dark, and he needed to find a fuel source, but he feared walkers lurked in the blackness. He wanted to pull to the side of the road, take a catnap, and try to relax, but he didn't know the area. Frustrated, he slowed the minivan near a bunch of abandoned cars, and glanced over at Shauna.

When the plague first hit, Morgan had made a little tube for ciphering gasoline because he had a deep suspicion that he'd have to steal gas at some point. He had taken an old water hose, cut it, and kept it under the driver's seat of the car. "I'm gonna need you to stand guard."

"Okay."

"We gotta get some gas," he said as he pulled a rubber hose from underneath the driver's seat.

A black Toyota set on the side of the road with the trunk popped opened and deserted. It had a red fuel container in the back of it with a little fuel in it. A gallon of fuel maybe two, but not enough to stay on the road until morning. He took the tube, stuck it in the gas tank, and siphoned as much fuel out of the car as he could. When the gas squirted out of the tube, half of it went into his mouth, and he spat it on the ground. The menacing smell of the walkers hit him in the face, and he waved for Shauna to stay alert, but he looked around repeatedly, but didn't see anything. Once he filled up the gas tank, he stopped the flow by yanking out the hose, and walked over to the minivan. Shauna stood directly behind him at the ready as he filled up the tank, and then he heard her load a round.

"Something is out there," she whispered as she held onto both pistols. "Hurry up."

"Moving as fast as possible," he said as he removed the container away from the truck. "Screw this."

When he walked to the passenger's side, a walker stood directly in front of him, but he kicked him to the ground. The deranged man tried to grab his leg, but he stomped him into the ground.

"Forget about him," Shauna screamed as she hopped in the driver's seat. "We gotta go."

After a few hours of some uncomfortable sleep, he awoke to Shauna pulling into a gun shop in downtown Dayton, Ohio. It was a small building with a large sign on the front of the structure that read Clayton's Guns and Ammo. The bullet riddled building had a slew of dead bodies stacked on the sidewalk, but there wasn't any sign of life, anywhere. He looked up and down the street to see if he could spot a walker, but he didn't see any movement. The entire downtown area looked like a war zone with all the cars turned over, burned, or even worse, a charred body on the inside.

"What're we doing here?" He asked as he looked up at the sign.

"Weapons and ammo and food for the long trek," she said as she stepped out of the vehicle with her weapon at the ready. "I'd tell you that God guided me here, but you're not a believer."

"Huh? Duane. Ladies get out of the car," he said as he grabbed his shotgun. He felt a little maligned by Shauna's statement, but she had a good point—he didn't believe. She kept maps that she downloaded from the Internet in her pockets, and probably marked the locations of gun stores all over the United States. That was more believable to him than her God nonsense. Tina and Ruth walked directly in front of Morgan, and Shauna checked the door to ensure that it was open, but it was stuck.

"Is it locked?" He asked.

"It's not locked, but a rope is tied to the handle," she said.

Morgan looked around for a minute, saw a rock, and just when he went to smash the glass door, a man on the other side screamed, "Wait!" A tiny man stood on the other side of the door with a green cap on his head with no labels. His thick mustache covered his top lip, and he had a 9mm stuffed on the inner portion of his jacket.

"I'm Clayton," he said with a smile on his face. "It's really good to see another human face."

"Likewise," Morgan said as he looked around the room. The horrible stench of decaying flesh stuck to everything including the young, gun shop owner. It stuck to him like he had a dead body attached to his hip, and it caused him to be on edge. "The smell of the undead is intense."

"It's all around us," he said, "Hundreds of bodies on every corner."

"No, It's in the building," he said as he looked into the back room to see a young, female walker tied to the wall. She had slime dripping from her mouth, and a gash on the side of her face that looked as if one of the walkers nearly bit off her head. "You have a walker for a pet?"

"You're a nosey one," Clayton said as he pulled out a 9mm, and pointed it directly at Morgan. When he pulled out his weapon, Shauna had her two pistols trained on his forehead.

"I don't miss, sir."

"She doesn't either," Morgan said as he held his hands in the air about the head level.

He lowered his weapon, and began to weep. "She's my daughter."

"She's an animated corpse," Morgan said as he grabbed Clayton's pistol. "Your daughter is gone."

"They might find a cure."

"It's not likely," Duane said, "The CDC burned to the ground."

"What're you saying?" Clayton asked.

"There won't be a cure," Morgan said, "Maybe they'll eventually die off, but there won't be a cure."

He walked over to the counter, and said, "I dreamed that y'all would come with good news."

"You had a dream?" Morgan asked.

"Yeah. It said that a man, a boy, and three young women were on a mission heading north west for the Lord, and that they'll need help with food and guns."

"Your dream said that?" Morgan asked.

"Sir, the good news is that north west is the land of milk and honey," Shauna said, "You're welcomed to join us.

"I'm okay. I'll stay here."

Clayton needed to face a harsh truth: once turned always turned. Ruth, Tina, and Duane helped load the minivan with four boxes of military meals, and he gave them two more rifles with tons of ammunition. After a few hours in the shop, walkers started to flock in front of the store, as if they knew something. Shauna spent a few minutes trying to convince him that north west was the new America, but he wanted to stay with his daughter in the safety of his gun shop. She was his life. By the time the gang stumbled to the minivan, at least twelve walkers had flocked in front of the store. The gang loaded up the minivan, and the walkers charged into the store as if they didn't see the occupants of the vehicle. Clayton didn't have time to put up his rope, and Shauna and Duane leaped out of the vehicle, fired off several rounds to slow the zombies' assault, but it was too late: Clayton's screams signified his end.

"Did your God see that?" Morgan asked.

"He made his choice," she said with a soft voice. "He'd be alive if he chose the living over the dead."

Morgan flung the minivan into reverse, and hit a few walkers as they descended upon the small store, and then he charged down the road, and the anguish in his eyes was loud and acute. For several miles, he didn't say a word because deep down in his gut, he knew if they never met Clayton that he would be alive, that he would have kept the rope on the door. All he knew was that he had an aching feeling deep inside his gut that kept telling him to drive north west.

Tina, Ruth, and Duane tore into a military meal, and thought it was the best thing they had ever eaten. Shauna fell asleep in the passenger seat, and planned on driving after a few hours, but the van ran out of gas near a small town outside of Cleveland called Ranchmore. Morgan grabbed the gas can, but only had less than a gallon in it, and put it all in the tank.

It was warm, but the two Amish girls remained covered from head to toe as if it were the winter. They looked tired and weak, but they weren't prissy. They knew hard work, farm work. They knew how to take care of a field, and Shauna had made an awkward statement earlier: they know how to breed. She claimed that God's voice was in her head, and that he chose the two Amish girls to help repopulate the planet, but Morgan didn't believe.

The population of Ranchmore was around two thousand, which didn't seem like a whole lot of people until they walked the streets as zombies. One container of ammunition held two thousand rounds, and they only had six thousand rounds total. A couple of major battles with the zombies, and they would have to start conking them on the head with shovels and bats.

The gang walked side by side over to the gas station, and tried to turn on the pump for some fuel, but a scraping noise caught their attention. He unsecured the hose from the pump, and a large walker stumbled over to them from inside the station. Shauna lifted up her weapon, but Morgan told her not to fire because that would send all the walkers to their location. It was a big zombie, a zombie with a broken leg that he had to drag to walk. The sound of the fuel flowing into the red container was a relief to his mind because gas was hard to come by, and they had a long journey a head of them. Many of the fuel stations were emptied within the beginning of the zombie invasion; and when he found one that had a little fuel, he praised God.

"Now you have time for God?" Shauna snickered. "Such a hypocrite."

"Just a figure of speech."

"Let's hope he doesn't think that of you," she said.

When the walker moved too close to Ruth, Morgan took the butt of his weapon, and bashed the walker's head until it hit the ground face first.

Shauna looked over at Ruth and Tina, and said, "Even Jesus swung a sword. In a life and death situation, choose life."

"But I made a promise to never handle a gun," Ruth said with a grimace on her face. "It's a choice."

"How 'bout you, Tina?"

"I just don't know how, but I'm willing to learn."

The two Amish girls were as timid as a sunflower in the dark: heads down and eyes on the ground, and it bothered Shauna. Their shyness ate at her soul the way battery acid eats holes in clothes. Morgan told her several times that she had to be patient because they came from a different culture, a culture of servitude and low education. Ruth was only fourteen and married, but lost her husband in the first wave of zombie attacks; and then there's Tina, a young girl who had an abusive father who molested her. It wasn't easy for Morgan to pry information out of the girls, but they talked more than usual, since they didn't have the heavy hand of their community oppressing them. He didn't realize the atrocities that happened in the Amish community; and to make matters worse, the punishments were like a feather floating in the wind, and hitting against a brick building.

Duane sat up against the wall of the convenient store, and devoured some cakes like a starving child, and Tina took a liking to the soda pop. The fizzle burned her tongue, and she giggled like a school girl every time she took a swig. Ruth liked the vinegar chips, and she stuffed the bags of chips into a paper sack that she found behind the counter. Shauna was much more conservative with her selection of foods. She grabbed a few pieces of beef jerky, stuffed them in her pockets, and slowly chewed on a small piece.

"Shouldn't eat more than you need," she said softly.

"Why's that?" Duane asked.

"'Cause you don't want to be slow during a walker attack."

Shauna made a lot of sense about being slow during a walker attack, and Duane and the girls packed away as much food as possible, and didn't eat any more than they needed. Morgan decided that it was a good idea to bed down inside the convenient store, especially since he could lock it up as tight as a safe. A small shower for truckers was located in the rear of the store, and Duane was the first one to use it. Tina was the last one in the shower, and the hardest one to talk into wearing a pair of pants off the rack. It was kind of funny to Morgan because the two Amish girls looked more out of place with jeans and a t-shirt than they did in their traditional garb.

Tina was a bit bigger than Ruth, especially in the chest area, and it made her uncomfortable because her father teased her about her breast size. She folded her arms over her chest, and kept them like that most of the time. Shauna tried to talk to her about that, but it didn't help, because her abuse had a lingering effect that wouldn't be resolved anytime soon. Once she started telling Morgan about her past, she had a hard time stopping. He just sat back and listened without passing judgment on her father.

Morgan felt well rested; and when he hopped to his feet, Shauna stood against the glass door with a baffled look on her face.

"What's out there?" He asked.

"I dreamt that two soldiers needed our help." She said, "Don't know if it's a message..."

"Wait? You're telling me about that female soldier again?" He asked in disbelief.

She stared at him with a grimace, and said, "Don't expect an unbeliever to believe."

"I believe," Ruth said.

Morgan and Duane loaded up as much of the food and clothing into the minivan, and the chips gave Ruth an upset stomach. She hadn't ever eaten foods with so much salt and flavor in her entire life, and it didn't agree with her. She ran back and forth to the bathroom, and Shauna kept guard of the door with each trip.

Morgan listened to Shauna talk about a heroic, female soldier with severe scars on her face that needed their help, and she went on and on about the young woman's war record. In a vision, she had seen the soldier pulling her comrades out of a burning vehicle, and a piece of burning tarp struck her in the face, scaring her for life. He listened to her story about the soldier, and then simply asked, "What's her name?"

"Teresa Jensen," she said in a soft voice. "She's not educated, but God is telling me she has a lot to offer."

He didn't want to laugh at what she was telling him, but he knew the possibilities of running into somebody from a dream was next to impossible. All he wanted to do was load as much stuff as he could haul in the stuffy minivan, and leave. The morning sun felt warmer than usual, and the little wind that did blow was ripe with the smell of rotting flesh. He checked the tires, but the left rear wheel was a little low, so he told Duane to look for some liquid tire maintenance on the back shelf.

Shauna forced Ruth to drink something to coat her stomach, and with a little luck they'd be on the road within thirty minutes or so, but she could barely stand the taste of that generic pink stuff. She did her best to choke it down several times, but she nearly threw up twice. Tina laughed, but straightened her grin when Shauna looked up at her. Something about her commanded respect, even when she hadn't done or said anything. It was genetic.