Read All That I See - 02 for Free Online Page B

made with him at the telethon.”
    “Aw, him too?”
    I nodded.
    Judy stood and hugged me.
    “It’s getting to be that we’re losing all the good folks. Before long, all that’ll be left is the riffraff and monsters. Are you hungry, hon?”
    “Yes, ma’am,” I said. “I could eat.”
    She went over to the work bench and opened a can of condensed chicken noodle soup.
    “Just give me a bit.”
    I pulled out the potted meat from my coat pocket.
    “I’ll trade you that,” I said. “I don’t really like it.”
    Judy snorted, “Yeah, well, Nick loves that stuff.”
    “You look kind of banged up,” Somerville said. “What kind of trouble did y’all have?”
    I told them about everything that had happened since I’d last seen them, but I focused on the night before--Corndog, the walkie-talkies, and Wheeler. By the time I was finished, my soup was ready. Judy gave me a spoon and I ate it right out of the pan.
    “I thought it might have been that bunch that attacked us,” Somerville said. “But then you said they were passing through.”
    “We wondered what happened at your place,” I said.
    “The group that came in on us was locals,” he said. “It was that damn Willy Rupe. He’d been looking for an opportunity to get me for years, and he saw his chance.”
    “Willy used to be a cop,” Judy said. “He and Nick didn’t get along.”
    “Hell,” Somerville said, “I got that jackass fired a few years ago. Him and his bunch came into the house looking for food and didn’t expect to find anybody home. When he saw it was me, well….”
    “It was awful,” Judy said. “But I tased him. You should have seen him jerking around on the floor.”
    Nicholas laughed, “Yeah, he pissed himself.”
    “Well,” I said, “this group had a church van from Tennessee. It doesn’t mean they were from there, but they were from south of here anyway.”
    “Unless that church happened to be taking a trip through Clayfield on D-Day,” Judy said.
    “I know they didn’t get Sara, because they came back asking about where this place was. I guess she went out to the Lassiters’ stables.”
    “Where’s that?” Nicholas asked.
    “About two miles south east of here,” I said.
    “Well, hell, let’s go,” Somerville said.
    “No, Nick,” Judy said. “We’d scare the poor girl to death. We’ll wait until daylight. It’s about three now, so we have a couple of hours.”
     
    None of us slept. Judy went ahead and put a campfire percolator on the woodstove and made coffee. Nicholas talked more about taking the town back, and I told him that Sara and I had planned to work on that as well. He was very interested in the group at Grace County High School, particularly when I told him they had a doctor and nurse in their group.
    “It looks like we’re going to have to deal with three different fronts,” he said. “We need to eliminate the sick, establish law and order among the locals, and then do our best to fortify against outsiders.”
    “The second one sounds doable,” I said, “But the other two—“
    “Then we’ll do the second one first,” he said. “I think a vict ory would do us all some good.”
     
    We left at dawn. I drove the Crown Victoria and the Somervilles followed me over in their pickup. The church van was parked near the front porch of the Lassiter house. I pulled in behind the van and got out. I saw some movement through the front window. Then the front door opened and Sara stepped out with her rifle. She wasn’t fully awake yet. She looked over at me then back to the pickup.
    “It’s okay,” I said. “It’s the Somervilles.”
    She propped her rifle against the door frame then ran across the porch. She didn’t slow. When she got to the end of the porch she jumped. It took me by surprise, but I caught her. She wrapped herself around me like a monkey and kissed my face. I stumbled back until I rested against the church van.
    “You’re safe,” she whispered in my ear.
    I heard