deadheads by jade swiler (top 100 books to read TXT) 📖

had gotten was just a regular flu strain that had mutated. That was scary because what else was floating out there?

Rob was still taking care of us all and I grew to like him. Not full trust mind you but it was on its way.

Rob had taken the last room in the hall and it was okay with me, he was next to the doc. He seemed to have some medical knowledge so doc had him help him with the rest of the ones that was still sick.

Maggie was doing good enough to get back to her kitchen so we let her. The deadheads had grown in size at the gates and we had taken turns to get rid of them. I was on the wall with jess and seth that morning.

“we have to burn them, its going to be bad. Might need a truck to move all the bodies away from the station.” seth said while taking aim at another deadhead.we had been shooting all morning and it seemed they were still coming towards the walls.

I nodded and took aim myself. I liked my sword better then a gun but shooting from the safety of the wall was better when you had a horde of a hundred or more deadheads trying to eat you from the ground.

By lat afternoon we three sat on the wall and kept watch, it had been a few hours since the last deadhead had fell. So far no more had showed up.

We finally climbed down and got doc, sara, rob, to help get the bodies in the truck to get them away from the station, seth and I kept watch and jess stood guard at the truck. It was almost evening when the fires blazed high and we could relax downwind from the smoke.

“seth, I think when I was at the capital, I think I found LT. Harris as a deadhead and killed him.” I suddenly said as we watched from the wall.

“jade are you sure?” Seth asked turning towards me.

“ I don’t really know, I had been bitten and was in pain, my mind was crazy, I even thought rob was Grayson.” I replied.

“I’m not sure if I trust him jade. He watches all of us when he thinks we are not watching him.” Seth replied.

I nodded because I had caught him doing it to me.

Jus tthen the door to the station opened and sara came out and walked towards us.

 

“hey jade, I heard turkeys earlier when we were moving bodies, want to know if you want to go hunting with me in the morning?” Sara looked up at me with a huge smile. When we were on the road, she had told me of all the things she would miss, turkey dinners were on top.

“sure, sounds like a plan.” I said with a laugh.

“are you up to it, I mean you just got over being sick?” Seth asked me quietly.

“yeah its just hunting, I feel pretty good.” I replied with a smile.

Seth nodded and we got off the wall and headed inside with Sara. Dinner was a lot of laughing and good times, we all felt better in some way. I was looking forward to hunting with sara in the morning. Rob had asked to go with us but seth told him he was needed here with doc. I was glad. I didn’t like the way he watched all of us either.

 

The next moring I got up at dawn, the sun was just rising over the trees when I got dressed and headed to the kitchen, flapjacks were on a plate in front of where I sat each day. Maggie was busy at the stove.

 

“hi jade, thought you and sara would like breakfast before you headed out.” maggie said over her shoulder as she flip another on the grill.

“looks great mag’s, thank you.” I said and dug in to the treat. Sara joined me soon after and we ate while talking about the day ahead of us.

We headed out soon after and walked the fields to the west of us for a while. It was quiet in the woods. It was my favorite place to be. We finally saw our first turkeys, a tom and hens were eating in an old forgotten field of soybeans. I readied my bow and took aim at the tom. Letting it fly, I hit it dead on. Sara took out a hen and we now had turkey dinner for the night.

“this is great!” sara exclaimed as she picked up her turkey.

“yes it was. I wish we had eggs, real ones, maggie could make deviled eggs to go with our meal. “ I said wishfully.

“hey wait a minute, I found a chicken coop that had some chickens in it last week before I got sick. I took some of them and made fried eggs on a fire. Lets go see if they are still there. I hope the deadheads haven’t got them.” sara said and pointed to the north from where we were.

I got an ideal, if they were still there, I would find a bog and put them in and bring them back to the station, they could run around in the yard and eat bugs and stuff out of the garden.

We would have fresh eggs too or eat chicken once in a while.

The old chicken coop sat behind a barn. It had maybe 10 chickens in it and a few nests with eggs. I didn’t know how to tell if the eggs were good or have baby chicks in them but knew maggie did.

Sara found 2 burlap sacks and we put five chickens in each, the eggs we took were put in a wooden crate and carried carefully home. A few deadheads we came across, sara took out with her knife.

 

At the station, magie used a candle and figured out that 22 of the eggs could be eaten. The rest were put out side for the hens to sit on. We would have babies soon if maggie was right. The chickens were a little underweight but sara had found some feed in the shed near the barn and we had taken that too. I set out a bowl of water and we soon had happy chickens in the yard.

Maggie taught sara and I how to clean and gut turkeys. We built a fire under a huge pot that seth had rigged over the fire and soon was dipping the trukey’s in and plucking them of their feathers. It was nasty work but soon we had them both done, th hen went in to the freezer and the tom was stuffed with homemade stuffing maggie had made.

Sara boiled the eggs and maggie mixed up the stuff to fill them. Even jess came to do something, she took the rest of the homemade bread and made bread pudding out of it.

It was then that we all found out that rob could sing. He mixed up a salad from dandelions that were around and started to sing a gospil song I remembered.

I made a fruit punch my mom used to make for party’s and we put it all in the frig to keep cold.

 

As dinner cooked, rob and I sat in the living room with the kids and rob sang some favorite songs from the radio before the virus. I left rain and sammy there with the others and headed for the shower.

In a few of the toats I had found dresses and mens fancy clothes. At first I thought it was weird but now was thankful. This was a party and I planed on being a girl for once, not a deadhead killer.

I washed my hair and got everything in my room, the dress was like a prom dress, long to the floor and was blood red, which with my coloring looked great on me. Jess had some makeup so I did my face and hair. My hair being so long I decided to put it up in a bun with ringlets hanging down on each side of my face. I looked at my self in a mirror in the bathroom and was stunned to see that I looked beautiful.

 

Seth came and got me for dinner. All the boys wore dress pants and a vest with long sleeved shirts. The girls wore fancy dresses of different colors. We all looked so good.

The table was beautiful as well. Rain and sammy had gotten pine branches and cones and had decorated the table with center pieces made out of stuff they had gathered to go with the pine cones and pine branches.

Maggie had set the table and the food looked wonderful.

 

I tried everything, everyone was moaning and grunting with delight. It was all so good.

The boys all got together and did the kitchen clean up which was super nice since all us grls had cooked.

 

That night I was so full. I laid on my bed so sleeping and comfortable, my door opened slowly and seth stepped inside. He laid next to me and held me close as I fell asleep in his arms.

We hadn’t made love yet, I wasn’t ready for that but we were close and I loved him very much.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(9)

 

Spring finally broke in to summer and the garden was growing well. Seth and marcus were building a pen in the back for pigs we saw that were loose just south of us. They were going to try to cath a couple to raise here for food. We had a lot of food in the cupboards but fresh meat was always welcomed.

 

The chickens were now fat and the eggs had hatched giving us more chickens to raise. Everyday we had wall duty o get rid of deadheads but not as much as before. One or two a day.

It had been months since I had went to find my parents, we hadn’t seen anything of grizzly. I thought maybe he was dead by now. It wasn’t easy to think that, because it could mean my parents were gone as well.

 

Seth and I had made the descision to head out of search missions to get things we could use at the station. We all took turns with a partner. I was paired with rob one day. We had gotten a tv and dvd player and some movies to watch. It helped pass the time at night. Games and things for the kids. We had a good life at the station. We also looked for weapons and ammo as well. It didn’t hurt to have a lot.

 

We set off at dawn after packing small bags each.

We used a map to head to a community where there were a lot of house in a subdivision. The houses were creepy quiet and no deadhads were seen. That didn’t mean they weren’t there.

 

The first house was a beast, it was huge.

There was stains on the floors and walls of the living room that showed deadehads had been here a long time ago.

We had taken a truck that seth had gassed up for us. A noise from upstairs alerted rob and I and we cautiously headed up there to check it out.

All the bedroom doors were opened and we looked in ad made sure they were clear.

The last door held an horror I had not seen.

A crib stood in the corner, a dead body of a woman was sitting in a chair next to the crib. Her head was almost taken completely off her neck.

A movement in the crib had me shocked in to standing there.

“I’ll take care of it jade, go downstairs.” rob said to me quietly.

I shook my head. I had to see for some strange reason.

The baby was a deadhead, about 3 months old, its body thin and nasty. It had died from a bite on its right leg.

I pulled my knife from my belt and leaned over the crib. As I slammed the knife down in to the baby’s head, I closed my eyes. It was horrible but it