A Dead Man's Tale

Chapter 19 (James)

The van jumped over every pothole that developed in the roads for the past two years. It made it near impossible to sleep but at least it was warm, having six bodies crammed into a moving van produced a lot of heat. Winters in the Pacific Northwest were harsh but there was nothing that could be done about it. Just survive.

The survivors of the Seattle colony had been surviving for the past two-going on three- years now by relying on each other. The fact that the colony was in the police academy just outside of town also helped, especially with its large quantities of food, medicine and weapons. Those supplies gave hundreds of people the chance to survive to the next day and figure out what to do next.

"You awake Jimmy?" asked the driver.

James grunted, his eyes tightly closed, not wanting to rejoin reality until he absolutely had to.

"Come on, kid." The driver nudged him. "You're the only one for me to talk to. The stiffs in the back are more concerned about sleeping then chewing the fat."

The young man in the passenger seat pushed himself up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. In the over head mirror James fixed his short black hair, feeling a pang of remorse over the locks of hair he had to cut away. Excess hair could be grabbed by a corpse and was fatal. He always appreciated his hair and missed it.

James stifled a yawn. "They aren't the only one's interested in sleeping." He swiftly knocked on the metal divider that separated the driving cab from the rest of the van. "Five miles to home."
The crumbling from the back made him smile. Why should he be the only one to be forced to stay awake? It gave him a smile.

"So what did you want to talk about Stan?" James asked. If he's awake he might as well play along. Stan was a good guy anyway and one of his few friends in Seattle that he made over the terrifying months.

Stan the driver was a heavy seat man, always said he was born with weight problems, with a face that seemed a size too small for his head which looked smaller and smoother since he started shaving away all the hair on his head. He reminded James of an egg.

"Well how about how easy that run was." Stan checked the manifest log of the supplies they found tapped to the dashboard of the van. "Plenty of medicine but don't know how good it is, two years past expiration date and all. At least we found some stuff we could build with like those pipes, cement and cinder stone blocks."

"It's only easy in the winter when everything's frozen. In the spring the corpses are all over the place." James felt bad about bursting Stan's bubble but the driver didn't know what it was like, he was typically a driver and never left the vehicle. Everyone else risked the open roads and buildings for supplies.

"It is getting harder and harder to find supplies out here." James wasn't just saying it for the sake of conversation. It was a fact.

"Yeah," said Stan. "Well things aren't so bad. We got that whole family of farmers, what were their names, McDonald or something? Well, they started growing stuff and pickling things in the warmer months and we started trading things with the communities in California which helps."

"Yeah, I guess." It took a lot to convince James.

"Still thinking about things on the home front?"

"Not much else worth thinking about." James was watching the trees flash by as they went past.

Stan thumped James' shoulder encouragingly. "I know things are hard and heaven knows it isn't going to get easier but you're strong enough to deal with this. We made it this far."