by A. R. Wise
She was facing away from me when she finally responded. "No one's told you yet?"
"No one's told me what?"
She sat down on my bed, a small cot that was secured to the wall, and looked at me for several seconds before continuing. "They attacked again."
"What do you mean?" I pivoted in my seat. The slipped disc in my back caught an awkward angle and a shot of pain caused me to grimace and clench the table's edge. I pushed against the table to force my entire chair to move and the metal legs cried out as they scraped against the floor. "Who got attacked?"
"Juniper and Hanger were hit with a new strain of the virus, and it doesn't look like anyone's immune to this one. Either that, or they kidnapped anyone that survived."
"Oh no," I said, saddened and shocked.
"That's not the worst of it." She looked down at her hands, as if lamenting how helpless she felt. "Vineyard was attacked."
"Attacked the same way?"
"No. They sent in a caravan of trucks filled with zombies that were infected and then attacked the rooftops with helicopters."
"You're kidding," I said, slack-jawed and wide-eyed.
She shook her head while still looking down at her hands in her lap. "Beach was killed, and so was Stitch. A bunch of other people too."
"Jesus. They came in with helicopters?" It was a bold attack, and one that defied their usual secretive tactics.
"Yeah, which still doesn't make any damn sense to me. They've never done anything that brazen before."
"Laura," I said with barely any attempt to hide my desire to tell her I'd been right from the start. "We've been saying this all along. I've been trying to warn you this was coming."
She got up and started pacing again, but didn't respond.
"I was right. We have to move the caravan to the Springs and prepare for an attack. We can get Jules and The Department to meet us there. They've been waiting for this too. I'll send Oscar out with a message to Jules, and we can meet up with them to prepare." I hurriedly grabbed a nearby pad of paper and prepared to write out our plans.
"No."
"What do you mean, no?" My surprise turned to anger. "Don't tell me you're still in denial about this. Come the fuck on, Laura. It's them or us, and it damn sure's not going to be me."
"We're not charging headfirst into this." She still looked away, studying the various maps that decorated my wall. "We're going to discuss all of our options and go from there."
I dropped the pen and sighed, disgusted by her unwillingness to be the leader the High Rollers needed. "That's just what we need, a fucking committee." I shook my head, but wasn't content with just being petulant. I needed to convince her that she was making a mistake. "They elected you to lead them, Laura. That's what a captain's for. If you can't handle it, no one would blame you for letting me take over again. Maybe that's what would be best."
She turned, and her admonition didn't need a voice. "I'm perfectly capable of leading the Rollers."
"Then prove it."
"I am! I'm proving it by not being a hot-headed asshole like you and leading our families into a war they can't win."
"So you're just going to lie down and die? Is that it?" I cut her off before she could answer. "Reagan started the Rollers to fight back. That's what we're here for, Laura, whether you like it or not. That's our job."
"That was twenty years ago."
I shrugged, annoyed by her pointless retort. "So what? That doesn't change anything."
"Yes it does, Billy. That's the thing you and the other warmongers here don't get. The Rollers started as a rebellion, but now we've got more Greens than Reds around here. There are families that live with us now, and children that have no business getting caught up in the war that we started."
"Oh for fuck's sake. How are we even having this argument right now? You said it yourself: Juniper, Hanger, and Vineyard were all attacked. Sitting here and pretending there's no war anymore is a surefire way of getting them all killed. Is that what you want?"
"I came here to talk to you because I respect you," she said. "Stop trying to belittle me, and treat me with the same respect I'm giving you."
That caught me off guard. I'd never realized that our ideological differences had led to me disparaging her so brazenly. I hated that she was reluctant to fight back, and my desire to beat down her opinion had overridden my respect for her. I was ashamed of myself as I looked into her watery eyes.
"I'm sorry," I said, and meant it. "You know I love you, but I just can't understand where you're coming from on this."
"I'm coming from the viewpoint of a grandmother who's already lost too much."
"Then what are you thinking?" I asked. "If we're not going to fight back, what's the alternative plan?"
"Split up."
"No," I said instinctually. "That's not an option."
"I don't think there's any other way."
My anger seeped back into my response. "We swore to never do that. That's the whole point of this. We stick together, no matter what."
She nodded, but looked unconvinced. "I know, but I don't see any other way. When I was elected, I promised to focus the Rollers on a path to settlement. Now, after what happened, there's no way I'm going to be able to convince you and the rest of your people to do that. You've been sneaking around behind my back anyhow, sending my daughters out there to keep on with your war." Her voice trembled as she reflected on the betrayal. "And now that this has happened, there's no chance for peace."
"There never was."
"There is when one person puts down their sword," she said.
"Yeah, and that person's called the loser."
She didn't argue, but instead knelt down and put her hands on the arms of my chair. She looked directly into my eyes, and I was uncomfortable with the intimacy of the moment. "You and I have known each other for a long time, Billy."
I nodded and shifted uncomfortably in my seat. "True enough."
"And you know that I think of you as a brother."
"I feel the same way about you."
She leaned in closer. "So listen up when I tell you that if you ever try to step between me and my daughters again, I will tear your head off and put it on a stick."
I chuckled, but she didn't reciprocate.
"I'm not joking." She stood up and walked to the back of the truck before pausing at the door. "We can disagree about politics, but leave my girls out of it."
"They're adults now, Laura. They can choose their own side in this."
She lifted the door and the sunlight blinded me. "You're a smart guy, Billy. Prove it by knowing when to shut the fuck up." With that, she was gone.
"Well, that could've gone worse," I said to myself and picked the pen back up to write my letter to The Department. If we were going to plan an attack against the local military establishments, I'd need their help.
Laura had left the back door up. A strong breeze fluttered the papers on my desk and the maps on the wall. I gripped the arms of the chair and forced myself up, which was an arduous task. My back was severely damaged twenty years ago, when Hero and I saved Laura's daughter, Kim, from a group of men that had taken part in spreading the zombie virus. Since then, I've had tenuous health. On some days I am relatively pain free, but on others I spend all day in bed, moaning at even the smallest muscle twitches. Clyde did what he could, befitting me with braces that were meant to provide me the support I needed to take pressure off my spine, but they never seemed to do much more than make it hard for me to breath.
This was a middle ground day. I was neither pain-free, nor encumbered with agonizing spasms. I got to my feet and braced myself for the familiar shooting pain to erupt from the center of my back, but was happy that it never came. I took a tentative step, and was emboldened by another pain-free moment. The second step was equally easy, and my trip to the back door suddenly seemed as if it would be no problem. That's when the third step caught me off guard. There was a spasm in the muscles of my back, as if someone had snu
ck up behind me and started stabbing a pen into the spaces between my spinal discs.
I fell down, which was the only action my body deemed plausible, and clawed at the floor as I seethed in pained anger. I cursed as I rolled onto my side in a fetal position, which sometimes worked to ease the pain, but did little this time. After a few moments, I found a position that kept the spasms at bay, and laid in it for several minutes. Each time I tried to move, the pain returned and I swiftly got back into my safe spot.
"Billy?" I heard a female voice from outside. It was Jill, Hero's wife, and she rushed to my truck when she saw me on the floor. "What the hell happened?"
"I was kickboxing again," I joked, and she snickered as she climbed into my truck.
"When are you going to learn?" She retrieved the crutches that were leaned against my table. I hated them, with their metal armbands, straps, and uncomfortable armrests, and frequently walked around inside of my trailer without their aid. "You've got these for a reason, bucko. And why aren't you wearing your brace?"
"Are you going to just yell at me or are you going to help me up?"
She stood above me, her hands on her hips, and tilted her head to the side as she said, "I'm going to start by yelling at you until you start to listen."
"We'll be here for a hell of a long time then."
She laughed, a bellowing, full-throated expulsion that was her trademark. Jill was a tall, hefty woman, but not someone you'd call overweight. She was strong, and thick, but exceptionally athletic, just like her husband. Her skin was much darker than Hero's, reminiscent of her African ancestry. Her hair was in short braids tipped with gold balls that clicked together when she moved, and her eyes were very expressive, adding a delightful amount of vividness to even her slightest emotions. When she laughed, she did it with aplomb, in an infectious explosion of joy. "You're a trip, Billy. You really are. Now let's get you up and back in your chair."
I looked at the wheelchair in the far corner of my trailer and shook my head. "No, not the chair. I can use the crutches."
"Oh I'm sorry, baby. I must've given you the impression that this was up for debate." She shook her head and then winked. "I'm not asking you to do it. I'm going to pick your skinny ass up and plop you down in it whether you like it or not. It's either that, or I'm strapping you to your bed."
"Don't you have patients to take care of?" I asked as she kneeled down to start inspecting my back.
She nodded as she gently pressed on the muscles around my spine. "I've been patching up gunshots all damn morning. Thought I was going to get a break, but then I find you in here all curled up like a baby."
She found the spot that was sore and I jerked away from her prodding fingers. "That's it," I said and eased back down. "Be careful."
"How bad is it? Think you'll be okay if I pick you up."
"I think so. Let's give it a shot and see what happens."
She wrapped her arms under mine and knelt beside my back before counting down. When she picked me up, I hardly had to use any of my own muscles. She was a marvel of strength, and she handled my frame as if adjusting a scarecrow. "You good?" she asked as we moved to the wheelchair.
"Yeah," I said despite the shooting pain in my back. She got me into the chair and I gasped once finally seated. There was sweat on my brow, and it felt like all of the blood had drained from my cheeks. She held my chin and forced me to look at her before leaning in and kissing my forehead.
"You need to take care of yourself, bucko." Jill had lived in Texas before the apocalypse, and despite the following two decades she still retained an antebellum, southern accent. "Levon would never forgive you if you went and got yourself hurt. And neither would I."
"Is he okay?" I asked. "I haven't heard much about what happened, just that Vineyard got attacked. Was he hurt?"
"Not that I know of. He went out with Kim to take the bodies to the burn field. Annie said he wasn't hurt, praise the Lord." She made the sign of the cross, then looked up as she kissed her knuckle. "He's got a bad habit of being in the wrong place at the wrong time."
"How bad are the injuries?"
She shrugged. "Not as bad as I would've expected. Seems like most of the people on the roof when the helicopters got there are dead now. They pulled a couple survivors out, but not many. The rest of them were saved by some Chinese fellow that distracted all the zombies and then took out the helicopter."
"No kidding. Is he here now?"
"Yep." She thumbed over her shoulder in the direction of the camp. "He's out in a trailer with old Harry."
"Oh Christ, why are we torturing him by sticking him with that old coot?"
"They're friends, if you can believe it. I guess Harry hasn't had a chance to piss the guy off yet."
"Give him time," I said with a knowing chuckle. "Can I go see this guy? I'd like to thank him for saving everyone."
She frowned and gave me an expression that warned it wasn't a good idea. "That's up to Laura. They think this guy might've had something to do with the attack. I don't know the details, but she wants to keep him separated from the rest of the group for now. His truck's parked out by the shit hole."
I gave an incredulous chuckle and shook my head. "For crying out loud. Did the guy save the town or not? Laura needs to learn the difference between the good guys and the bad guys."
Jill shook her head and gave me a disapproving grunt. "No sir, don't go trying to get me mixed up in that fight. You and Levon can bitch about Laura all day if you want, while you sneak around and build your bombs, but I'm staying out of it. I'm sick and tired of all the bickering around here."
"You can't stay on the sidelines forever."
I was trying to be playful, but Jill's expression let me know this wasn't a laughing matter for her. She didn't look angry, but I could see a tired sadness in her eyes. "That's just it, though, isn't it? You look at this as a game, with you on one side and Laura on the other."
"That's not what I meant…"
"And maybe you're right. Maybe the two of you are just playing a game, and all the rest of us don't get to sit on the sidelines forever. You're going to throw us out on the field whether we want to play or not."
"Jill," I called out to her as she walked to the back of the truck.
"Nah, Billy. I've got to go. Just think about what I said, okay? Think about the players you're putting in the game. Maybe they're sick of playing."
She left me alone.
In the distance, somewhere in the circle of Roller's trucks, I heard children’s laughter.
CHAPTER EIGHT - ONE MISSED SHOT
Annie Conrad
"Well this is it, then, right?" asked Abe, one of the Rollers standing in a group near the Captain's Tent. "We're booting her ass out?"
I was inside of the tent, eavesdropping on the group as they debated outside. I could see their silhouettes against the tan fabric wall, cast by the fading day's sun. They didn't know I was listening, otherwise they would've tempered their insults about my mother. It was well known that Kim and I disagreed with our mother about the future of the Rollers, but we also didn't put up with people denigrating her.
"Fucking better," said Michael, another one of the Reds that aligned himself with Billy. "If it weren't for her, I bet this wouldn't have happened. I don't want to be nasty, cause I think she's got a good heart and all, but this was her fault. Am I right?" The group agreed. "This is her fault."
"They can't seriously be thinking about still trying to set up a town. Can they?" asked Abe. "I mean, what more proof do we need? They're killing all the settlements. If we don’t keep moving, and keeping hitting them, then we might as well settle down and dig our own graves. That's what she's doing, you know - she's digging our graves for us."
The group agreed.
Abe continued, bolstered by the others’ validation of his opinion. "And you know what? All this bullshit about how she's a good person - seriously man, fuck that. Since when does being a good person keep your family fed, and safe, and happy? She mig
ht be a good person, but there's no cure for stupid. Am I right? And trying to ignore this would just be straight up stupid. If she tries to tell us we're not fighting back," he gave a pronounced sigh, "shit, guys, it's going to get nuts in here. For real. I'm not going to sit back and let her kill us all. Sorry, but I'm not going to do that."
The group agreed, their tenor rising.
"What are you going to do?" asked a male voice. I thought it was Cane, but wasn't positive.
"I'll raise hell," said Abe. "There's enough of us on Billy's side that there's no way she can convince us not to fight. Am I right?"
They agreed and I grew increasingly frustrated with how he was so blatantly eager for their approval.
"We'll out vote her. We'll de-elect her, or whatever."
"Impeach her," said one of the men.
"Is that what they call it?" asked Abe. "Yeah, we'll do that then. And if she fights it, then we'll do what we have to." He paused, giving his threat time to breath. "I'm not going to let her kill us all. Fuck that."
I'd been cleaning my pistol, and I slid the chamber back into place. Then I aimed at Abe's shadow on the wall.
"I'll do what I have to," he repeated the thinly veiled threat against my mother.
I mimed a gunshot aimed at Abe's shadow's head.
I hate politics.
A birdcall interrupted my murderous fantasy. The Roller scouts used a specific chirping call to alert others to a problem. The overabundance of birds in the post-apocalyptic world had deadened most people's reaction to their cacophony of sounds, which made this an ideal way to get the attention of other Rollers trained to listen for the odd combination of sounds. No bird made a sound exactly similar to what we used, but anyone untrained in identifying the noise would dismiss it as natural.
I sprang from my seat and rushed out of the tent. Abe and the other men that had been blabbering outside were equally alerted by the warning call, and were headed out to the scout trailer.
Abe's eyes locked on mine, and I smirked as he realized that I'd been listening to them. I winked and holstered my pistol, delighting in his embarrassment. I walked away, leaving him to wonder how much I'd heard, and headed for the tanker truck that was befitted with the raised platform over the cab that we all referred to as the Crow's Nest.
