Joseph Talluto - Taking It Back

We pushed off the canal edge and drifted away. Charlie nudged me and pointed back to where we had come and I could see several zombies, shuffling slowly along the edge of the canal, staying away from the water, but drawn to the meal that was drifting away. Charlie raised his rifle but I waved him off. They weren’t any danger, so there was no point in wasting the ammo.

We drifted farther south, coming up slowly to the town of Freeport. This town was in better shape than Romeoville and had been an old river town in its day. The original I amp;M canal ran through this area. Nate had made his way to this town and had secured parts of it. We would eventually make our way down here and retake this town as well. We didn’t need it right now, but I hoped eventually we would. There was a great stone building in Freeport that had once been a warehouse during the day of the canal, and would make a great fortification to use as a base for retaking the town.

I didn’t see any zombies as we drifted past, but I was sure they were there. They would always be there until we saw each and every one dead and burned.

We moved farther south, drifting lazily on the canal as the sun climbed higher in the sky. The canal was lined with trees and we moved in relative quiet. In fact, it was kind of boring. I found my mind wandering off in ways I hadn’t done for a year. It was weird how a little security made one relax.

I was in one of my mindless wanders when Sarah tapped me on the arm. We were approaching one of the locks on the canal, and there was a building that crossed three quarters of the canal. A lock system was on the left, and we would have to go through the locks to proceed further down the canal. I had considered this when we started off and we would have missed the locks had we followed the river, but we would have dealt with a lot of unseen underwater obstacles and I figured this was faster. But if the lock was closed we might be stuck.

We moved into the lock chute drifting slowly forward. We passed the lockkeeper offices and canal administrative offices of Joslin. We floated forward and luckily passed through the gigantic locks that regulated the flow of traffic on the canal. I figured the locks had been left open when everything went south, and no one had ever come back to set up the system again.

On the other side of the locks, the canal merged with the river, and the water flow was even faster. We were on the outskirts of Joslin and I was curious to see how the city had fared. We had seen bits and pieces of it when we were retrieving cargo containers last year, but we hadn’t gotten as close as we were now. We began to see more buildings and homes near the river and several bridges. Coming into view as well was the appearance of several hundred zombies. In one area alone I figured there had to be three hundred zombies milling about in a perverted, slow moving dance of death. They raised their voices as we passed and several moved towards the canal, but the way was blocked and they were unable to follow us. Several fell into the canal and we all watched carefully to see what would happen, but as far as we could see the damn things couldn’t swim, nor did they float.

I began to get an uneasy feeling the farther we drifted into Joslin, and the feeling was punctuated with the sounds of what was clearly gunfire. Somebody was shooting at something and by the sound of it, something was shooting back. I motioned for the women on board to go into the shelter and Charlie and I readied our weapons. We were in a bad way if someone opened up on us because we had no shelter and were pretty slow moving.

I motioned for Tommy to start the engine and get us past the town. As far as I was concerned, Joslin was a dead zone to be as avoided as much as Chicago. It sounded like there was a war going on and I personally did not want to get involved in it. Tommy fired up the engine and we moved quickly downriver, getting past four bridges and moving closer to the big interstate bridge. We saw zombies nearly everywhere and I realized this area was going to be a constant worry as long as it remained active. If someone was alive in there, they were welcome to it.

The river widened after we moved under the interstate bridge and I began to breathe easier as we were able to move farther away. I went over to the shelter and gave the all clear. Sarah glared at me as she came out.

“What now?” I asked.

“If there’s trouble why would you hide the women?” she asked, poking me in the chest.

“Because you and the other women are tempting targets to men who may not have seen a woman for a while, at least not a live one,” I said. “I’d rather fight just the dead right now.”

“Why?”

“Because the dead don’t shoot back,” I concluded. I glanced over at Charlie who was getting a similar earful from Rebecca. We shared a sympathetic look and went back to our poles.

Tommy ran the engine for a half an hour and we made significant progress. I was monitoring our trip on a roadmap and judging by the bends in the river and roads we were passing, I figured we were coming close to where we were going to have to get out of the boat and walk to our destination. We passed the town of Channahon and as I looked it over I could see it had been hit hard as well. A lot of zombies from Joslin must have traveled south and descended on this area as well. Charlie looked at me and I just shook my head. We didn’t have the manpower to take this on yet.

The sun was beginning to set lower in the sky and I figured we would need to camp. According to the map, we were passing the Des Plaines Conservation Area and I reasoned it would be a good place to settle for the night. I had Tommy turn down a side area on the river and we were pleasantly surprised to find a small marina nestled in the crook of the river. I could see a road that crossed the river farther up and effectively blocked any water passage in that direction.

I directed Tommy to bring us up alongside the pier and Martin and I jumped off with the mooring lines. We secured the boat and all of us got off to stretch our legs. The sun was lower in the sky and the east was darkening with purple streaks. The moon was making its appearance and I figured we had about two hours left of daylight. Tommy immediately began working on the grill to get dinner ready and the women pulled out the coolers. We were going to have hot dogs, having discovered the vacuum sealed packages lasted nearly forever. Not as long as Twinkies, but close.

Charlie and I decided to take a walk to secure the area and see if there was anything we could salvage for our trip or set aside to retrieve later. We moved down the pier and listened to the water from the river lap quietly against the supports. There were no other boats at the marina and I could only assume people used them to escape to who knew where. In the back of my mind I wished them luck.

Charlie and I approached a long building that seemed to be a maintenance shed for the marina. There were two boats in unusable condition outside the shed and scattered debris around the cleared area. We were surrounded by woods and I could see Charlie weighing in his mind what the possibilities of game animals in the area might be.

On the south side of the shed there was a pull-behind camper and a quick look revealed nothing of interest. In all likelihood this was just where it was stored until needed. Too bad the roads were pretty much unusable, this thing would have been valuable.

Charlie approached a large tank by the side of the building and tapped on it, starting high up and then moving lower. By sound, we figured there was about half of the tank left, about fifty gallons. We might need to figure a way to take that with us.

I approached the door of the shed and tried it out. It was locked. I moved over to one of the big garage doors and tried that. The door moved up about a foot and I stopped it there. I grabbed my flashlight, backed away and looked under the door. Seeing nothing, I opened the door all the way.