The Virus Within: The Unranked (Book 4)

Ch. 40: A Tank?

I inclined my head at the tiny fire. "He left his fish behind. Feel like a snack?"

"I'll pass," he replied dryly as he opened the driver's door.

He ignored my smirk as he backed the truck away from the lakeshore and returned to the road.

"Since when do you help me torment people like that?" I finally asked, curious about the deviation from his usual high standards.

"If he had any intentions of living an honest life, he would have tried joining one of the Strongholds he passed by when he could have easily claimed he was a traveler who ran into trouble while Stronghold hopping. Now he'll think twice before trying to steal any livestock or bother a Stronghold."

I checked the horizon. "I didn't think there were any Strongholds near here."

"There aren't, and that should also keep him guessing. By the way, he was telling the truth about the tank."

My eyebrows furrowed. "I don't think I've ever seen someone use a tank, even before the fuel ran out. I wonder what they were doing with it."

"I'm not sure. But we aren't finding anything down this road, and this group doesn't sound normal, so I'd like to try tracking them down. There are only two roads on that side of the lake, and they both head north, assuming they didn't turn off later."

After testing the air, I said, "I'm not picking anything up, although moving vehicles don't leave scent trails. We aren't exactly finding anything noteworthy, so I don't see any harm in checking one of those roads. If we reach Odessa Stronghold without finding anything, we might as well just head west and return to Graydon."

I was all for cutting this trip short. We hadn't found any other signs of unranked zombies or suspicious groups. Our accomplishments so far today were abysmal; we'd wasted half a day, collected one coyote carcass, and terrorized a bandit.

~

Nicky looked up from her coloring. "Oh—You're back early." She tilted her head. "Please tell me you didn't break the truck."

"No," I told her as Nina turned around to face us. "We went on a wild goose chase and didn't so much as find a feather. We decided to cut our losses and come back early."

The redhead held up a shirt with a rainbow swirling across the back. The outlines were all in place, and about two thirds of the rainbow had been colored in.

"Look at how much I got done!" she said proudly.

"You're getting close."

"I still have the back to do," she said, flipping the shirt around to show an interesting geometric pattern, outlined in various colors, of course.

"That should keep you out of mischief for a while."

"Maybe..." Her eyes furtively flickered to Daniel as he walked over to his usual chair.

As he sat down, a paperclip dropped from underneath the seat, releasing an elastic that shot across the room, striking another paperclip anchor holding several elastics. They twanged in various directions, hitting and knocking over small targets like empty cups with uncanny aim.

Last, but not least, Nicky's rubber ducky rocketed out from behind a nearby chair, hurtling toward Daniel's shoulder. He caught the toy mid-air and barely spared it a glance before lobbing it in Nicky's direction.

"Impressive," he commented. "How long did it take you to set that up?"

"A couple of hours," she replied with a grin, catching the rubber ducky almost as easily as he had. "It would have gone faster if Logan didn't keep setting them off."

Logan shrugged without concern. "It was interesting to see how it worked, and it gave her practice setting it up and fine-tuning her aim."

"But then some visitors arrived with news of another strange zombie," Nicky said, "so that distracted him long enough for me to finish setting it up."

"A strange zombie?" Daniel asked, more focused now.

Nina pulled a map off the counter and held it out to him. "They saw it near a farm to the southeast. I circled the spot."

"Didn't we just come from that direction?" I asked.

Daniel examined the map. "Sort of, but this is much farther east than we went. We'll have to take a different highway to get to this particular area."

His words and the way he scrutinized the paper as if memorizing every turn made me sigh. "Let me guess, we're going on another road trip?"

"It's barely three o'clock," Daniel said, still staring at the map. "We'll have plenty of time to get there, and we can probably even make it back before sunset."

The direction kept nagging at my peace of mind. Finally, I turned to Nicky and asked, "These visitors, did they have a tank?"

"I wish..." she muttered. "That would have been the biggest potato cannon ever. No, they stopped for a while, then continued heading north. But it was kind of weird."

I regarded the redhead who was the very definition of weird some days. "What was weird?"

"Either you and Daniel are visiting a lot of Strongholds or gossip around here really travels fast. They knew Nina was here and that she was studying the mutant zombies."

"None of us talked with them directly," Logan added, "and they didn't stay long. They stopped just long enough to trade for some food and make sure the 'Zombie Expert' called Nina knew that they'd spotted a mutant zombie. Wyatt got them to mark it on a map for us."

"We didn't stop at any Strongholds to the southeast," I said, frowning at the odd events.

"They heard Graydon's radio broadcast," Logan clarified. "After seeing that zombie, they decided to take a detour and let Graydon know about it."

"Have any other Strongholds reported anything?" Daniel asked, finally looking up.

Logan shook his head. "Most of them haven't seen anything unusual, although a few haven't replied yet."

"And one of them—that happens to be somewhere to the south—is oddly silent," Nicky commented, flicking a piece of lint across the table.

"How close is that Stronghold to where we're going?" I asked, wondering if the two events were related.

"It's not overly close. Maybe a two or three hour drive apart," Logan replied. "The Stronghold is south of here, and the zombie is a lot farther east."

"Lovely," I grumbled. "I presume we're going to stop there and make sure they're okay too?"

"It's only right," Daniel replied, standing up.

Nina grabbed a backpack and also got to her feet. "Do you mind if we check on the zombie we reinfected before you leave? I'd like a blood sample and to see how he's doing."

"I can walk there with you if Trinity wants to restart the fire in the truck," he said, glancing between Nina and me.

I shrugged. "Fine. I'll drive over after."

"Oh! I'll help start the fire!" Nicky bounced to her feet and ran out the door so quickly that I wondered if I should grab a fire extinguisher before following behind.