by Lopez, Rob
“It’s in Packy’s interest to make sure we remain here, in good health and able to trade,” explained Rick to Scott. “I don’t think he’ll give away any information that might threaten that.”
“Until someone catches him and gives him a choice between information and his life,” countered Scott.
Rick broke open the air rifle to check its barrel. “No one said life was perfect,” he said. The barrel, and the rifle, looked to be in good condition. With two such rifles, Rick hoped to double the harvest of small game. More than double, in fact, as he wanted to increase the hunting they did in lieu of scavenging. Looting houses was time-consuming. They’d get more in return if they specialized in hunting and left the small goods to Packy. They were at least blessed with an abundance of trees in one of the most wooded states in the country. Luckily for them, they weren’t in Nevada.
“But it’s still pretty good,” concluded Rick, locking the barrel shut. “Think you can build us a smokehouse?”
“For the meat?”
“And the fish we’re going to catch. Got a lot of lakes and ponds within a five-mile radius.”
“We going to risk the smoke being seen now?”
Rick shook his head. “No point inviting trouble, even if some people already know we’re here. We’ll use it after darkness, so you’d better make sure it’s safe, so it doesn’t catch fire while we’re asleep.”
“Nice to see you ain’t asking too much.”
Rick slapped him on the shoulder. “I know you can do it.”
“Gonna have to, with the extra useless mouths we have to feed,” remarked Scott. “How is Holy Joe, by the way? Is he dead yet?”
Rick had been in to check on Harvey’s progress. He hadn’t come away optimistic. “Not yet,” he said. “Give it time.”
The way things were, he didn’t think they’d have long to wait.
*
Lizzy and Daniel ventured into the room where Harvey lay. Lizzy had been told to avoid the room and, dutiful girl that she was, had done so up until this moment. Passing the closed door as she played in the corridor, however, piqued her curiosity. She wondered what she’d find in there.
Lizzy had been gifted with a great imagination, as evidenced by the pictures she drew, and she’d witnessed terrible things already. Still, that made her wonder why her mother forbade her to go anywhere near that room. It couldn’t be worse than what she’d imagined.
And she felt older now. She was helping her parents out with new and difficult things, and she was responsible for little Daniel, playing at being a mother herself. It was her own experience that mothers shouldn’t be afraid of anything. She might not be able to carry a gun yet, like her own mother did, but there was no excuse for not being able to face things, square on.
At least she knew there wasn’t a dog in there.
She’d grown to like Janice very much – the old woman doted on her – but she was still a little afraid of Bella the dog. He seemed so big.
Checking to make sure she couldn’t hear any sniffing or scratching behind the door, she turned the handle and pushed it open.
Her eyes fixed immediately on the body of Harvey lying on the couch, his arms crossed on his chest. She was reminded immediately of her dead grandma, except Harvey looked more at peace. Lizzy’s heart raced.
“Can I help you?” said a voice.
Startled, Lizzy jumped, seeing Sally sitting on one of the easy chairs. Recovering herself, Lizzy said, “Just checking … something.”
“Uh huh,” said Sally. “And is everything in order?”
Lizzy kept glancing toward the body. “Daniel, you should stay outside.”
Daniel, trying to look past her, ducked under her arm and pushed into the room. “Wow,” he said when he saw Harvey.
“We should go,” said Lizzy hastily.
“No,” said Sally. “You can stay. I’m feeling kind of alone here.”
Lizzy wasn’t sure it was the best place to be alone. Especially since she wasn’t literally alone. “Why don’t you come into the rest of the house?” she asked.
“I’m needed here,” said Sally. “He needs my prayers.”
Lizzy wasn’t familiar with the concept of prayer, and wasn’t aware that it was done for dead people too. Was it like where you talked to a ghost?
“How come you don’t do nothing?” asked Daniel.
“What do you mean?” asked Sally innocently.
“My mommy said you don’t do nothing,” said Daniel.
Sally straightened in the chair. “So that’s the prevailing gossip, is it?”
Daniel looked confused. “I don’t know.”
“You think I should be doing more. Is that it?”
Daniel caught the annoyance in her voice and fell silent. Lizzy immediately became protective, stepping in front of the little boy. “Daddy says we all have to work together and do things. For community.”
Lizzy wasn’t sure what that last word meant, but she’d heard it enough times to assume it was important, though admittedly Scott seemed to find the word funny. She made a note to maybe ask him one day why.
“Did your daddy also tell you that gossip can destroy a community?” said Sally peevishly.
Lizzy felt at a double disadvantage, as she didn’t really know what gossip was either. “We’ll be going now,” she said.
At that moment, Harvey shot up into a sitting position, his face aglow with revelation. He turned to look at Lizzy and said, “An angel.”
Lizzy ran screaming from the room.
*
April was sawing wood under the chandeliers of the foyer when Daniel came running down the stairs and skidded through the sawdust on the marble-effect floor. “Mommy! Dead man’s talking and he’s walking.”
“What?”
“It’s like that TV show you used to watch,” said Daniel, almost in tears.
April grabbed her shotgun and stormed up the stairs. If she expected to see zombies roaming the upper corridor, she was severely disappointed. All she found was Harvey, partially clothed, leaning drunkenly against his doorway.
“What the hell you doing, scaring my boy?” she yelled.
Harvey, looking like he was about to pass out, held his hand out with the Bible still in it. “Saw an angel,” he murmured, confused. “I thought …”
“You thought nothing,” shouted April. “You come near my boy one more time and I’m gonna shove that there Bible up yo ass.”
Lauren came running into the corridor. “What’s happening?” she asked. Lizzy lurked behind her, daring to peek out.
Sally appeared in the doorway by Harvey. “What’s happening is that people have been engaging in slander,” said the nurse archly.
Lauren looked from Harvey to her. “What do you mean?”
“I think you know very well what I mean.”
“No, I don’t,” said Lauren.
Sally folded her arms. “I think you’ve made it very clear that some of us aren’t welcome.”
“Damn right, you ain’t,” interjected April.
“Now, hold on a minute …” began Lauren to Sally.
Rick and Scott arrived.
“Smooth words cannot undo what has been said in malice,” said Sally.
Rick pushed his way through to Harvey, eyeing him carefully.
“Is this what you have invited us here for?” said Sally pointedly to Rick. “So that we can be the subject of mindless prattle?”
“Shut up for a minute,” said Rick. He was more interested in Harvey. “Are you okay?” he asked the security guard.
“I’m alive,” said Harvey, as if surprised. “An angel looked into my soul and said I wasn’t done yet.”
Rick put his hand on Harvey’s brow to check for fever and pulled down the lower lid of an eye to see if the color was healthy. It appeared to be. “What else did he say?” he asked.
“He said I gotta do my penance,” uttered Harvey. Then he fainted.
27
Dee dragged her
sneakers through the mud as she approached the farmhouse. Her coat had been taken from her, and she hadn’t eaten all day – a deliberate policy by Boss to ensure she would look pitiful. Nothing had been more harrowing, however, than having her baby snatched from her.
She’d fought with the raider guard as he wrenched Jacob from her hands, and earned herself some bruises in response. Jacob howled in a way that cut through Dee’s heart, and she begged to have her baby back, but her pleas fell on deaf ears.
“You’ll get your baby back when you return with the information we want,” said Axel, dragging her away.
She continued to hear Jacob crying as she left the camp with the raider patrol.
A cold rain lashed down, soaking her cardigan sweater until it hung heavy with water. Shivering, she reached the low wire fence surrounding the farm yard.
“Hold it right there!” called a voice from the farm building.
Dee halted and put her hands up. She didn’t want to be shot. She had no idea what they would do with Jacob if she didn’t make it back. The thought of what might happen to him terrified her more than the idea of taking a bullet.
The voice had come from a man in a doorway, his rifle clearly visible. In the windows, other faces peered out. Dee counted at least four. In the background, a dog barked. Dee wanted to cry. She didn’t want to be there and had no idea how this would play out, but she was trapped. The raiders who’d brought her close to the farm were far behind her, hiding in a ditch but watching her through rifle sights and binoculars.
“Help,” she said in a quavering voice. That was what she’d been told to say when she made contact, but the word sounded flat to her ears, barely audible above the rain. Axel told her she had to sound convincing. The people in the farm had to take her in. If they didn’t, he would consider that she hadn’t tried hard enough. He didn’t need to elaborate on what that would mean for her. Or Jacob. She screwed her eyes shut and shouted out: “Help me!”
The man in the doorway looked to be in his forties, with the craggy face of an outdoorsman. “We got nothing for you here,” he said. His tone was blunt, but his face suggested uncertainty.
“Our camp was overrun by raiders,” she cried. This too was in the script. Axel had told her not to ask for food or shelter – that would certainly have them reject her, especially if they were protective of what they had. She had to pique their interest with news they wanted to hear. “Just a few miles from here. There were dozens of them.”
The man appeared cautiously interested.
Please, don’t take me in, thought Dee. Send me away. Fire a warning shot so the others would know I could go no farther. Please.
“Raiders, you say?” said the man.
Yes, but it’s a trick. Please don’t be kind. Be cruel. Declare you don’t give a damn. Let me go back to my baby.
Dee nodded miserably, squeezing out tears.
“How long you been traveling?” said the man.
“All night.”
The lie tripped easily from her tongue, and her stomach churned.
Look at me! See me for what I am. A fraud. Don’t let me in!
But if they didn’t let her in, she might not see Jacob again. She considered maybe telling them the truth. Maybe they’d help her get Jacob back.
But it was a fantasy. They were only a few people in a farmhouse, and the raiders had already overcome tougher resistance. They were ruthless, whereas these people were not. Dee could see that now.
And if these people had been ruthless, they would have shot her already, or taken her hostage. Or whatever. Dee couldn’t see a way out of this. This wasn’t the kind of situation she’d ever imagined having to deal with. In order to get her baby back, she was going to have to betray these people.
The man consulted with someone behind him in the doorway.
“Where were you headed?” he called.
“I’m trying to get to Wadesboro. I have a cousin there who might help me.”
That was the final part of the script. Wadesboro was over three days away on foot. Mentioning it would reassure these people that she had no plans to outstay her welcome. She just needed to get in out of the rain for a while, tell them her news, then move on. That was the psychology behind Axel’s instructions. Whether he’d thought of that himself, or whether it had been Boss’s idea, he hadn’t said.
But she was certain it was Boss. He understood people, even as he hated them. That was what made him such a bastard. That was why he knew Dee and the other mothers made the best spies. Anyone else would have been tempted to run away. But she couldn’t, and in the dark pit of what passed for his heart, he knew it.
“You stay right there,” said the man in the doorway. “And keep your hands up.”
He came out, and a younger man with a shotgun came out with him. Dee wasn’t sure of a family resemblance, so the younger man might have been his son, nephew or even neighbor. They approached her warily, then the younger man checked her for weapons. “She’s clean,” he said.
The older man, feeling more secure, stepped closer to her. “Now tell me about these raiders,” he said. “Did you get a good look at them?”
Dee nodded fearfully. “They were a big group. They killed the guards in the camp. Took people prisoner.”
“And you got away?”
“I ran into the woods. It got dark.”
Dee shivered uncontrollably, and she just wanted this to be over with. If the interrogation continued, she wasn’t certain she’d slip up and say something she shouldn’t.
A woman appeared in the doorway. She looked to be the same age as the older man. “Jamie Lee,” she called in an exasperated voice, “get in out of the rain this minute 'fore you catch your death. And bring that poor girl inside. That ain’t no place to talk.”
The older man nodded grudgingly. “You’d better come inside,” he told Dee.
They helped her over the fence and ran her to the doorway, where the woman waited with a blanket. Draping it over Dee’s shoulders, she ushered her into the kitchen. The two men coming in behind her slammed the door shut and bolted it. Footsteps creaked from the floor above. The kitchen stove was cold, and Dee couldn’t get rid of her chill.
“We need to get you out of those wet clothes,” said the woman, taking charge. “Get me some towels,” she told the others.
While everybody fussed over her, Dee sat at a wooden table. On the other side of the table stood a little girl. She couldn’t have been more than four years old.
She watched Dee with fascination, and Dee stared back, feeling sick inside.
28
Scott lay awake, gazing at the flickering shadows on the wall cast by the pot heater. April lay cuddled up to him, her leg across his legs, her arm across his chest. Daniel slept next to her. All three were under layers of blankets and quilts, spread out over the two conjoined mattresses. It was the only way to keep warm at night. They were in December now, and the increasing cold had turned the clubhouse into a refrigerator. It was too big a building to heat, and the chill emanated off the walls. During the day, it was actually colder in the building than it was outside when the sun shone. At least, that’s how it felt. The moisture trapped in the rooms they slept in encouraged the growth of mold, first in the corners of the ceiling, then spreading down the walls. Only the boardroom was heated by the log burner, which was where they all convened for their supper. That was also where they dried their washing.
The pot heater was Chuck’s idea – placing a raised terracotta planting pot upside down over a candle in a jar. The clay, with a thick metal bolt dropped through the hole, absorbed and radiated the heat more efficiently than the candle alone. It made a slight difference to the temperature of the room.
“What are you thinking?” said April drowsily.
“I thought you were asleep,” said Scott, still staring out.
“Trying to, but I felt the troubled brain waves of my man disturbing my karma.”
“I ain’t troubled. Just thinking.”
“What about?”
“This office. It’s too big. We should rig some curtains up to divide the room. Make it a little easier to heat. Chuck’s idea could use some refinement, but it’s still a good one.”
April sighed happily. “You’re always looking to fix something,” she murmured.
“We need to. Chuck’s right about the weather being unnatural. It’s getting way colder than it should.”
“This is about right for Baltimore.”
“Yeah, but not here.”
“You think the solar storm’s got something to do with it?”
“Don’t know. Maybe.”
Scott was distracted by the softness of April’s skin against his. He thought about how strange it once seemed to make love to her while Daniel slept under the same covers. Still, that’s how people used to do it in winter, throughout history. If not in the same bed, then in the same room, hut or cave. As far as he could tell, Daniel never woke. The boy seemed comfortable with his presence. Even reassured that he had a father figure in his life. The three had become a family faster than Scott could have imagined. And he felt comfortable with it too. It was a far cry from the deadbeat drifter he always thought himself to be.
It was a strange circumstance in which to discover this new truth, but Scott was pragmatic about it. Better late than never.
“Do you think that Harvey guy’s right in the head?” mused April.
“No,” said Scott.
Daniel had recovered from his seeming encounter with the walking dead, but he remained wary of the security guard, and Scott only needed the tiniest of excuses to thump the man unconscious. He made no attempt to hide his antipathy.
“He just seems crazier now,” continued April. “Like his brain got starved of food. I swear he sees stuff that ain’t there. He ain’t ever going to be right.”
“Don’t worry about him,” said Scott with conviction.
“Just don’t like being under the same roof as him or that freaky woman. Do you think Rick is in his right mind tolerating these people? I notice you’re disagreeing with him more.”
