by Urban, Tony
"Saw?"
"Solomon Baldwin. He's the one you talked about with the hole in his forehead. And the boy with the cut-up face. I can't be a hundred percent certain, but that must have been Mitch. Duplicitous little shit.
"Saw told us about his plan to take over the island and that's when I decided I'd had enough. But before I cut ties I made the mistake of telling Mitch, and Mitch told Saw and..." He held up his foot to show the missing half. "Would have been a whole lot worse if Mead hadn't come along when he did."
Wim thought about this for a long moment. The events that brought down the Ark all happened so fast and he'd been so caught up in mourning Emory, and the shock of learning Ramey wasn't immune, that he barely remembered much of it.
"I hope that doesn't sour your opinion of me too much."
Wim realized he'd stayed silent too long. "Oh, no. I'm just surprised, is all. You weren't there. You didn't do nothing wrong."
"That might be true, but I still feel partly responsible. Aiding and abetting, at the very least."
Wim shook his head. "Don't you fret about it. Everything at the Ark was bad. That place was like a poison. I'm not saying that Saw character was right in doing what he did, but the faster that all came to an end, the better."
Aben sighed and Wim thought he seemed to sit up straighter. "Well, that's one less burden to carry anyway."
"You have others?" Wim meant it as a joke, something to lighten the mood, but it had the opposite effect.
"Hell, I got too many to keep an accurate count on all of them." Aben stopped petting his dog and glanced Wim's way. "Don't you?"
Wim only nodded in response. He supposed that was the price to pay for survival.
Chapter 11
Mead laid on his back, sweated soaking wet and out of breath. So tired was he from the exertion that his eyes were slow to focus when the vaguely yellow shape came into view above him.
"Fuckeroo. That was incredible," Mead said between mouthfuls of air.
The woman who straddled him smiled. It was on the crooked side and revealed a gap where an incisor should have been, but the sight of her grin never failed to bring about one from him too. "Well I'm pleased as punch to hear that. We could do this a hell of a lot more often if you'd stop leaving."
He grabbed her by the waist, his fingers sinking into her pudgy midsection. He liked all her soft curves almost as much as her lopsided grin. He pulled her down onto him and she landed hard, pushing a happy oof from his lips. She giggled.
On one of the scouting missions, Mead had found Lydia Danville and two others traveling through Oklahoma. The man with them, Mead seemed to remember his name was maybe Frank, had a badly broken hip that had gone septic. The women, Lydia and a middle-aged spinster type named Myrna, were dragging him along on a homemade stretcher cobbled together from tree limbs, twine, and a ratty wool blanket.
Mead told them about Brimley and they all agreed to return there with him, but Maybe Frank was delirious with fever and less than a few days later he died in the night. Mead awoke to Lydia's screams and found Maybe Frank grabbing hold of her shirt and leaning in for a mouthful of tit.
Even when sleeping, Mead never had a weapon more than a foot away and that night was no different. He gripped a spear made of metal conduit and impaled the man from behind. The sharp end popped out Maybe Frank's right eyeball and that made Lydia scream even louder, but she was alive and her (in Mead's opinion) perfect tits were unmarred.
So, after that, it was just the three of them that finished the trip back to Brimley. Myrna wasn't much for chit chat, or common courtesy for that matter, and seemed to dislike Mead on general principle, but Lydia cozened up to him and he wasn't about to push her away. She was in her mid-twenties with dirty blonde hair to go along with her curves. She'd been a school teacher before the plague and Mead often thought teachers were a hell of a lot hotter now than when he went to school. That was well over a year ago and, in Mead's opinion, she was just about the best damned thing left in the world.
As he looked at her body pressed against his, her wavy hair spilling across his chest, that opinion certainly didn't change.
"Believe me, I'd love nothing more than to do this every day. Multiple times a day, for that matter."
"Then why are you going? You don't even know this Will guy."
"Wim. And I know him. I saved his life four years ago as a matter of fact."
"You did?"
She looked up at him with her drab, hazel eyes and he told her the story about finding Wim and the old man, Emory, trapped in a hotel surrounded by zombies. The way he told it they were teetering on the precipice of death until he came along with his hockey stick swords and brought down hell on the undead horde. He might have embellished a bit here and there, but that was hard not to do with that beautiful woman looking at him in awe and he felt he'd earned the right to be a bit of a braggart.
By the time the story was finished, Mead was recuperated and ready for round two. Lydia must have felt him rise to the occasion because she reached between his legs and took his hardness in her hand as a coy smile crossed her lips.
"Only way we do it again is if you make me a promise."
"What's that?"
She kissed his chin, then the corner of his mouth. "I want you to promise me..." She kissed him on the lips, her tongue pushing its way inside his mouth and tickling him.
Her hair fell into his face and Mead put his hand behind her head and kissed her back. He was starting to think he really was crazy for even considering leaving this woman when she broke their kiss.
"Promise me you'll come back."
"You know I will, Lydia." He didn't want to outright lie to her, he cared for her too much to do that, and hoped those words would suffice.
"You don't know what I know. I want a promise. I want the words, 'I promise'. No hedging."
Mead looked her direct in the eyes, steeled himself. "I'll come back when this mess is done. I promise you."
She grinned again, and Mead felt both relieved and guilty that she hadn't realized that he'd had his fingers crossed.
"I've never said this before because I take words serious. And I've never made a habit of saying something just for the sake of saying it. But, I love you, Mead."
That made Mead feel even more guilty about the possible lie, but at the same time there came a tightness in his throat that stretched all the way down to his stomach.
He couldn't remember a woman ever saying she loved him. He imagined his mother might have once or twice but couldn't pinpoint any particular memory of her actually speaking the words. And his blink and you miss it marriage started with "Oh shit, I'm pregnant" and ended with "I hope you rot in hell!" and there was little time for pleasantries in the middle.
As he looked at Lydia, he knew he wanted to spend his life with her and he thought about telling her that in the moment. That he wanted to marry her. But he knew proposing the night before he went on a journey that had the very real possibility of leading to his death would have been a shitty thing to do.
He settled with, "I love you too."
That satisfied her, but Mead thought it seemed flippant. Four short words that did little to express his true feelings for this woman and his hopes for their future together. As they made love again, he told himself that, if he survived the trip to the Ark and back, he'd never leave her again. He owed her that. Shit, he owed himself that too.
Chapter 12
Aben tossed and turned for hours but sleep wouldn't come. He crawled out of bed and strolled to the window where he tried to guess the time, but the sky was full of clouds and all he could tell for certain was that it was still dark. He knew returning to bed for another try would lead to nothing but more restlessness and decided to save himself the trouble.
As he exited the cramped, three room cottage that had been his home for the last few years, Prince glanced up at him with half-closed eyes. The dog didn't speak to him, but Aben answered him anyway.
"I'm just going o
ut for a spell. You stay in bed."
The dog flopped its head down on the quilt, satisfied, and Aben stepped into the night.
He was glad to be leaving Brimley. He had no bad feelings against anyone here, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't find a way to feel comfortable. He was a round peg living in a square hole. If you tried hard enough, you could squeeze it in, but it was never quite right.
The idea of the trip excited him. The road had been calling him since soon after his arrival in Brimley, and even semi-frequent scouting missions did little to satiate the need to be on the move because, no matter how big of a circle they made while out gathering supplies, he always knew he was going to end up back at the starting point again. He needed something open-ended and this was the perfect fit.
He'd made it a third of the way through town when he smelled a familiar aroma. Baking bread. He didn't have to follow his nose to the source. He knew where it was coming from and when he reached the porch of Coraline's house, the smell was so strong he was salivating.
Coraline's fresh-baked bread was one of the few things he'd miss about Brimley. And, to a lesser extent, Coraline herself.
"Only thing worse than a hungry dog is a hungry man."
He looked toward the voice and saw her silhouette in the kitchen window. "Morning, Coraline."
"For Christ's sake, Aben, it ain't even morning for another few hours. The smell of my bread wake you all the way from here to there?"
Aben shook his head, not that he was certain she could even see the gesture. "Can't sleep. Insomnia, I suppose. What's your excuse anyway?"
"Come inside and maybe I'll tell you."
He did.
Coraline was somewhere in the vicinity of sixty years old. Her black hair had gone mostly gray and she kept it pulled up in a top knot so tight it doubled as a face-lift. She was one of the first residents of Brimley and although she was prone to cantankerous episodes when she didn't get her way, she was one of the more helpful members of town.
She'd pulled out a chair at the kitchen table and motioned for Aben to sit in it. He did. Then she sat across from him and picked up a pitcher.
"Coffee? I should forewarn you, I brewed it about lunchtime so it's apt to be cold."
"Goes down the same regardless of the temperature."
She poured him a cup and he took a swig. It was cold and bitter, but he wasn't about to complain. They sat there in silence for at least two full minutes with the orange glow of a kerosene lantern illuminating their wordless faces. Aben finished the coffee and had had just about enough of the scintillating conversation to last the rest of the night, but as he began to push his chair back from the table, Coraline finally broke the silence.
"Where are you in a rush off to?"
Somewhere less chatty, he thought. "Oh, nowhere in particular."
"Then sit and keep an old widow company for a bit."
Another long silence passed and Aben cursed his nose for leading him to this house. He realized Coraline wasn't going to start a conversation and decided he'd give it a go. "So, you're baking bread."
She nodded. "We covered that already."
"How could I forget?"
She poured him another cup of coffee even though he didn't request nor desire it. Nevertheless, he drank it because it gave him something to do.
"You said you'd tell me why you were awake at this hour."
"I said I might."
Aben nodded. "You're quite specific, aren't you?"
"I'm baking bread--"
"As we've discussed."
Coraline gave a pinched smile. In his experience, that was about as good as it got from her. "Bread for you to take on the trip."
He liked that she called it a trip. Like they were going to Disney World or maybe Bar Harbor or Miami Beach. Just a few guys hitting the road for some fun in the sun and not three men heading to some deranged madman's island of misfit toys.
"You didn't have to do that."
"Course I didn't have to. I wanted to. There's a difference."
Aben finished off his second cup of coffee and turned it upside down on the saucer to prevent her from forcing upon him a third.
"I suspect you'll tire of canned goods in short order and I never saw any great culinary talents from you or Mead so unless that new fella can work magic over a campfire, your pickings are bound to be on the slim side."
"Well thank you for that. I appreciate it. I've always been fond of your bread."
"I know it."
That seemed to exhaust the potential conversation and after a while Aben stood. "Well, Coraline, I've got some packing to do so I think I'll be getting on."
Coraline nodded and watched him move to the door. When his hand fell upon the knob, she spoke again. "Aben?"
He looked back, reluctant.
"You'll be careful out there, won't you?"
"I intend to be just that."
"Good. I occasionally get the sense you feel out of your element here. But you're an important part of this town. People respect you."
"There's no reason to."
"Well they do. Whether you want them to or not. And I'm one of them. So be careful and come back to us."
"Thanks again for the bread, Coraline." Aben opened the door and left the woman and the smell of her bread, behind him.
Chapter 13
It seemed to Wim as if every resident of Brimley had come to wish them well on their journey. Aben and Mead partook in the pleasantries, but Wim was eager to move. To get on with the getting on.
He watched as Mead said his farewells to the people for whom he'd provided a safe haven, and their admiration of him was obvious. He enjoyed seeing Mead get the credit he so deserved. He knew the man had been treated somewhat poorly the first time they were together and that wasn't fair. He might be a bit of an odd duck, but he was almost certainly the best of all of them when it came to survival.
Wim noticed that Mead's goodbye handshakes had hugs shifted into slow motion when a buxom woman with blonde hair came along. He couldn't hear the words exchanged, but it was obvious to Wim they were a couple. That made him glad too.
Wim was so busy watching them that he didn't see anyone approaching him until he felt a tugging at his shirt. He looked down and found a boy of about six or seven peering up at him, his eyes slits in the sunlight. He had skin the color of honey and wore a tattered Kentucky Wildcats ball cap that was a bit too large for his noggin.
"Hey, you," the boy said.
"Yeah?"
The boy pushed a skinny, but long carrot Wim's way. "I got a carrot for your horse. In case he gets hungry."
Wim crouched down so they were more or less at eye level. He saw a light mark on the boy's upper lip and realized it was a healed scar where he'd had surgery to repair a hare lip. "Well that was nice of you. The horse is a she though."
"What's her name?"
"Gypsy."
"Who named her that?"
"Someone I loved. Very much."
"Who was that?"
Wim had a sense this type of inquisition could drag on, and while he appreciated the boy's kind nature, he wasn't interested in drawing it out. "How about you give Gypsy the carrot? That way she'll know it was from you."
"Really? I can feed her?"
Wim nodded, and the boy moved to Gypsy's front. The horse glanced down, mostly disinterested.
"Hey Gypsy. This young fellow--" It was his turn to ask a question. "What's your name anyway?"
"John Robert Hubbard. But everyone calls me JR. You can call me that too."
Lord, even his name was long, Wim thought. "JR brought you a carrot."
The boy pushed the carrot toward Gypsy's mouth. At first, she pulled back in a 'get that out of my face' gesture, but Wim stroked her mane and she calmed a bit. As the boy wagged the carrot back and forth, the horse seemed to realize he wasn't going away unless she took it, so she grabbed it between her teeth. Wim could practically imagine she was thinking, why didn't the kid bring a sugar cub
e instead, but she chewed away on the root like it was cud and JR audibly squealed with joy.
"She likes it!"
"She does," Wim fibbed. "I thank you. And I'm sure Gypsy would too if she could talk."
"Horses can't talk!"
Wim pondered making a Mister Ed reference but imagined it would go far over the boy's capped head and he let the matter drop. With great relief, Wim watched JR skip away toward an elderly woman. "Mama Iris, I fed the horse!"
When the goodbyes and pleasantries were over, the men got to work loading up the wagon. They were nearly finished when a man who Wim guessed to be on the downhill side of sixty approached. He had a pistol on each hip and a rifle in his hands.
"You look like you're ready for the parade, Pablo," Mead said to him.
"I'm going with you."
Mead raised an eyebrow and a smirk pulled at the corner of his mouth. "No. I appreciate that you're volunteering, but you stay here and keep an eye on things, okay?"
The man shook his head and there was a steely look in his eyes that made Wim suspect he wasn't going to be deterred. "I heard where you're going and why. I lost my whole family to the plague. My wife and my three daughters. My grandson and son-in-law. They all died and turned into zombies and I had to put them out of their miseries."
Pablo looked to Wim and Wim thought the man's eyes might be the saddest things he'd ever seen. "You say that man started the plague. Then he is the one who is responsible for their deaths. So, I am going with you."
Mead looked to Aben, then to Wim. Wim shrugged his shoulders. Who was he to tell this man who'd lost maybe more than any of them, he couldn't be a part of this?
"Alright," Mead said. "You have anything to pack?"
Pablo motioned to his guns. "I have all I need."
"How about a bike? Because we're running low on transportation."
"I will retrieve one," Pablo said and jogged away.
Mead stepped to Wim's side. "Are you okay with this? I mean, it's kind of your show."
