Chapter 12
Survivor Radio
Cam
By the time they’d loaded their packs, the extra food and water, and what was left of the diesel, the now-motionless bodies of something like a dozen ankle-biters littered the overgrown field around the pickup truck.
More were crawling their way when Cam and Allie finally finished hanging the signs and officially left the bunker behind.
Allie started the pickup and drove out of that field and onto a back road, heading northwest. They kept the windows down, all the better to look at the big blue sky stretched before them and let the fresh air—and it truly was fresh with the stink of the zombie horde now gone—fill their lungs.
God, it’s good to be back outside. Cam grinned at Allie, hoping she felt the same, and gratitude filled him to the brim when she smiled back.
For the first hour or so of their drive, Cam filled the time by telling Allie about where they were going.
In their area of mid-to-northern Missouri, the settlements were mostly small but wide-ranging, and he described them in as much detail as he could.
Then he told her more stories about his group, about their specialties and personalities.
“Once we meet up with them, we’ll put the bunker”—our bunker, he wanted to say, even though it was Allie’s—“on our maps. People will know it’s there, and they’ll know how to get inside, thanks to you. It’ll become a great resource, a safe space.”
Maybe someday they could come back. It was a pipe dream, probably, but it was something to look forward to.
They also talked a little about the roads. Many of the major paved roadways were still clogged in places with dead vehicles and bodies, although the highways and interstates were generally clear enough to navigate.
When they crossed the river on the Chester Bridge—the same bridge he’d run across, although it felt like a year ago instead of less than two weeks—he breathed a sigh of relief and patted the Ford’s dashboard.
Thank you. He’d been hoping like hell the truck would at least get them over the Mississippi.
Get them past that bridge and the overwhelming fear that had driven him to cross it before.
Now that they were in Missouri, Cam told her more about what they would see when they got closer to his region.
How the Missouri River curved north of them and seemed to help form a natural barrier for the Zs—although zombies could still cross on bridges and even through the water, it was more difficult for them, especially when the water was high and moving quickly.
It was amazing how much a difference that could make.
He focused, too, on how people were actually working together to figure out ways to make their region safe.
When Cam’s group had left their home region to go down south to Mother’s Hands, the settlements were working on clearing roadways between them for easier access, pushing the dead vehicles to the sides to form barriers wherever possible, making it more difficult for the zombies to get onto the road.
“That’s a good idea,” Allie mused.
“We’re trying to make it easier to stay connected.” Cam gave her a smile. “People need people. And speaking of...” He turned on the radio and turned the dial until he heard a woman’s voice.
Allie gasped. “Harper!”
The signal was clear enough that they could easily make out the words—apparently, Harper’s people had been working on new ideas and recipes for easy fertilizer, and she was giving a tutorial. DJ Clueless no more.
“She sounds so good.” Allie smiled, wiping at her cheek, which was now damp with what he hoped were happy tears.
“Listen to that! And look at all the good she’s doing, what she’s built there.
” She paused, and a wash of bitterness seemed to twist her mouth.
“And all the while, I was hiding away from everything.”
“You were surviving,” Cam said, taking her hand in his and resting them both on her jeans-clad leg. “And I, for one, am really fucking grateful that you did.”
She squeezed his hand, and they listened until the broadcast ended with Harper’s old familiar sign-off—“Survive, survive, survive”—and started over. “She still plays them on a loop.” Allie smiled again. “Damn, I hope I get to meet her someday.”
“I’m sure that can be arranged.” He nudged her with their entwined hands. “You know a guy who knows a guy.”
When the broadcast began fuzzing out, Cam leaned in to change the station. “Once we get within range, we should be able to tune in to 93.5—if we’re still in the truck by then,” he said. “That’s Mid-Missouri Survivor Radio. The settlements use it to keep up with the news in our area.”
After the old truck’s dial radio yielded only static on 93.5, Cam stopped on a station playing a Neil Diamond song.
Allie hummed along with the tune then laughed. “I still can’t quite believe people have kept radio stations going.”
“Not too many of the big ones, unless they’re solar like the Station,” Cam said ruefully. “The MMSR is, too, so that’s its saving grace. The ham-radio people with smaller battery-operated setups are out there, too, but their range is limited.”
Much like Allie’s Sarge. The stations went dark periodically, which probably meant they were overrun, but like Allie, he preferred to think the radio operator must have simply left or lost power temporarily.
After a few more late-1970s songs, Cam decided to try again. He caught a crackly bit of voice and paused, leaning forward to fiddle with the dial and bring it back. “Damn,” he muttered. After he eased the radio tuner back and forth like a safecracker, the station came back.
“... small group of Zs spotted heading west on I-44 near...” The voice faded into crackles.
Cam groaned. “Of course. No idea where now.”
“Well, we’re past 44, at least.”
Not far enough past for his peace of mind. Still, she had a good point. “There is that.”
Static, an extended crackle, then “... settlements advised... strip searches mandatory... safety...”
Allie’s big brown eyes went wide. “Strip searches?”
Cam sighed. He turned off the radio, which was mostly static again, and leaned back in the seat. “I know. It’s standard procedure now, though. None of us are wild about them, but surely you saw the Bitten do their thing before you went into the bunker.”
“Some. It was so inconsistent, though. Like, when Patrice’s husband was bitten, he turned less than an hour later.
We were ready for it. Or they were. I wasn’t allowed to be around him.
” She grimaced. “But not too long after that, we came across a couple—the night before, the wife had been bitten on the leg, a big chunk torn out. It was afternoon when we got there, but she was still alive. Acting more or less normal, obviously sick but alive. The husband was telling us what had happened when she... Well, she lurched up and grabbed him. She’d torn open his stomach by the time we could stop her. ”
Nothing like good old-fashioned haunting memories from the zompocalypse. He and Allie had begun calling it that in the bunker as a joke, but the term seemed to have stuck.
“It was like she was waiting for more people to come along before she turned, right?” he asked.
Slowly, with a look of surprise, Allie nodded.
“Yeah. We’ve seen that shit before too. No rhyme or reason to the timing.
Severity of the wound doesn’t seem to matter.
If they die during the attack, while they’re being fed on, though, they seem to turn almost immediately.
If they survive, some act normal, others really oddly.
Some try to hide that they’ve been bitten.
Outright lie about it. Even people you’d swear were absolutely trustworthy. ”
Allie nodded. “So the settlements have to assume that anyone who’s been bitten won’t always show signs or admit it. Makes sense. But that is really scary.”
“The youngest in our family—well, we think he’s a teenager, although he swears he’s twenty-three—we found him last year, living alone up near the Plant.
One Bitten had made it into his group. What was left of his family, plus a whole bunch of others, had started to put together a settlement.
The Bitten was a little kid, couldn’t have been more than ten years old.
No one checked her properly, not even her parents.
They assumed she was okay.” Cam’s stomach churned at the memory of Ripper’s eyes as he’d told the story.
They’d been so hard, so haunted. “She turned the first night. Ripper was the only survivor.”
Allie seemed to digest this. “He must be good at killing zombies.”
“Frighteningly so. Hence the nickname. It came from RIP—you know, rest in peace—but he made it his own.”
“Rest in peace? That’s a thing?”
“It’s from one of Robert’s Rules of Chaos.
‘Everybody rests in peace.’ Killing zombies sets them free, so some people are dedicated to ripping them.
There are groups of RIPpers, with the capital RIP, that travel around—anyway, more on that later.
Back to our Ripper.” He paused. “He said he saw... Well, he swears the girl who turned wasn’t even feeding, just biting people. ”
Allie’s mouth had formed a silent O.
He nodded. “That kind of shit is why my group knows that whole ‘it’s a virus’ thing is fucking ridiculous.”
“I’ve seen enough to agree.” She shuddered. “None of this feels like a virus.”
Cam nodded. He thought about telling her more, but it was probably time to change the subject.
“And the new world isn’t exactly a democracy.
But there are a lot of good people out there, trying to make sure they do their best for their people and for humanity.
Whatever’s left. And from what I’ve seen, I really do think people are coming together and helping each other. ”
Her wan smile wasn’t exactly a vote of confidence, but it was a start. “Will you tell me more good things about post-zompocalypse life?”
For the next few hours, he focused on stories that would make her smile.
Allie