“Zazz?” I question.
“Yeah, Zazz Blammyatazz,” he chuckles. “Zazz for short.”
“You name all of your animals?”
“Yeah, dude, they’re my family, they’ve gotta’’ have names. There’s Clipper, Vlad the Nibbler, Lavender, Zazz, Miss Foxxxy Love, and tons more.” He laughs again. “Come on, let me show you your room and you can get some sleep. Aiken wants to see you first thing tomorrow. He likes you.” Phil wanders into the other room, and I think about going in after him but change my mind. Thankfully, a minute or so later he comes back out. “You planning on sticking around then, dude?”
I frown, because as much as I want to go all Lone Ranger-style, I know I won’t. Being on my own has its benefits, but it also has its drawbacks. And as much as I hate to admit it, I’m a people person now. Besides, until we find Adam, I can’t go anywhere.
“I guess so, if I have any value to the group.” I shrug.
“Everyone has value. It’s whether you choose to use it wisely or not.” Phil’s expression grows serious for a fleeting moment—so fleeting that I wonder if I imagined it. Then he claps his hands and shows me to my room.
Later that night, as I lie on my bed, I think about this place and of course I think about Nina. Would she want me to stay? Or would she want me to head to the cabin on the island, like we talked about? I have no idea anymore, but I know that whatever happens, until I find Adam I won’t be going anywhere.
Chapter Nine
I wake to the sound of snoring, and it’s not my own, and I jump up, my hand reaching out for a gun, a knife, anything to defend myself with. Instead it lands on a furry head and I jump upright in bed.
Fluffy’s snoring ceases and her eyes open, and then we’re staring at one another wondering what the hell is going on. Eventually she closes her eyes again, deciding I’m not currently a threat, or that sleep is more important right now. As her snoring starts up again, she lets rip with a horrendous smell that is worse than what washed off me last night, and I’m almost surprised that she didn’t cock her leg up.
“Oh God,” I say and I dive out of bed.
The German shepherd is lying on her back, her front paws curled upwards and her tongue lolling out of her mouth as if we just reenacted a love scene from a porno and she’s all worn out from her hard stint of submission. Her head pops up and her eyes follow me as I walk the room to the door, her nose twitching like I made that damn horrendous smell. Moments later she follows me out of the room, stopping halfway down the stairs to stretch.
I head for the kitchen, where mercifully, I can smell coffee. And sure enough, there’s a coffee pot brewing. I grab a mug and pour myself some, giving myself a moment to relish in the taste of the hot caffeine as it slides down my grateful throat. The morning sun is pouring in through the kitchen window and I head over to it and look out, seeing people milling around on the street with seemingly nothing to do but go about their everyday lives like this isn’t the end of the world.
I open the back door and look out, seeing Phil sitting on the back step drinking a coffee and smoking a cigarette. He looks up as I approach, and he yawns and smiles. In the cold light of day I can see that he’s older than I first thought, perhaps mid-thirties, where last night I had thought he was in his twenties given his taste in Hawaiian shirts and long hair.
He pushes his glasses up his nose and offers me a smile. “Morning, dude.”
“Morning. I um, I got a coffee, hope that’s okay.”
He nods. “Of course, me casa es su casa, dude.” Fluffy sits herself down next to Phil and he strokes the top of her head. “Morning, girl.”
“She umm, she slept in my bed,” I say, feeling like an animal pervert even though nothing happened between me and Fluffy.
Phil shakes his head and finishes off his cigarette before stubbing it out by his foot. He stands back up. “Nah, you slept in her bed. Come on,” he says with a laugh. He goes inside, coming out moments later with a large machete and a handgun, and he attaches both of them to his belt.
He hands me a hatchet and a gun also, and I stare at him wide-eyed for a moment, surprised that I’m allowed a weapon inside the town at all. In fact, as I look around I can see that everyone is carrying a weapon of some sort—even the teenagers have something strapped to their hips or backs. Longswords, small machetes, even an axe or two, and almost everyone seems to have a gun.
“What?” Phil asks.
I look at him, my wide-eyed stare turning into a frown.
“You’re wondering why we let everyone walk around with weapons on show?”
“Well yeah. I guess it just seems like everyone here is relaxed and at ease. I didn’t expect them all to be armed to the teeth.” I watch a man and a teenage boy walk past. The man’s arm is across the shoulder of the teenage boy in a fatherly gesture, and the kid is looking up at the man with respect. It makes my heart ache.
“This is Haven—homes for everyone and protection for all. We’re all NEO and we all protect each other, no matter what. We have nothing to fear from anyone inside these walls. It’s outside of them that’s the danger.” Phil pats Fluffy on the head and then heads down the steps.
All three of us—Fluffy, Phil, and I—walk through Haven, and I try to take in as much of it as I can. The walls surrounding this place are high, but not overbearingly so. They obviously have their shit together, I decide. I just hope they really are the good guys, because so far it would seem that I have a habit of picking the wrong team.
“Aiken trusts us all to look out for one another. If there is an issue, he has ways to deal with it. But we’re all here for the same thing,” Phil says. “And that’s reason enough to keep the peace.”
“And what’s that?” I ask. “The reason you’re all here.”
“To live,” he replies with genuine confusion at my question.
We pass Kelli and she waves at me, though she doesn’t look like she did last night with her dress and boots. Today she’s wearing army camo pants and a white tank with a gun holster hanging at her hip. She keeps on walking to wherever she’s going and I turn back to Phil.
“Kelli’s a good girl, you’ll like her,” he says with a grin.
“It’s not like that,” I reply, immediately shooting down his thought, and he nods and looks away.
Phil takes the three steps up to one of the larger houses and knocks at the door. The house isn’t like the rest. It’s all brown brick and wood instead of the white of the other buildings, and I can’t decide whether this is purposeful or if it just wasn’t finished before the apocalypse. Walking around, I can see that not everything here is finished, though for every half-built dwelling there are three or four people working on it.
A mean looking dude opens the door and we’re ushered inside and directed through to the living room. The walls have been painted, but barring a lick of paint, there’s nothing else on them—no photos or artwork, not even a map, it’s oddly disconcerting compared to the rest of the room. The room is part homely, part work/office space, and part, ‘I’ve been too busy surviving the apocalypse to give it my own personal stamp.’ I like it though. It makes Aiken seem like even more of the real deal. Like he’s not just putting on a leader front for the sake of the easy life and the finer things. He doesn’t seem to care about how things look for himself, and by the way people are walking around with weapons, he clearly trusts his people to not go on a killing rampage.
Aiken is standing by the window, talking to one of the women I met last night. Vicki, I think her name is. His expression is serious, verging on almost angry. When he sees me, he stops talking and sends her away, but I make a mental note to try and find her and talk to her later. I want to know what that conversation was all about.
“Mikey, my boy, how’d you sleep?” Aiken comes toward me and holds his hand out. “Phil here looking after you, I hope?”
I shake his hand and nod. “Yeah, barring the giant snakes and spiders, and Fluffy’s noxious farts, we’re getting along
pretty well, thanks.”
Aiken and Phil laugh, and as if on cue, Fluffy lets rip with another fart.
“She always does that after a fight,” Phil clarifies, as if the death smell emanating from her ass needs explaining. “I think it’s the zeds—they don’t agree with her guts. I’m going to take her for a quick walk, let her clear out the old pipes.”
Phil nods to Aiken and leaves with Fluffy at his heels. Aiken directs us both to his sofa and I sit opposite him, feeling anxious and apprehensive.
“So look, I’m not going to beat around the bush—we’d like you to stay, Mikey. There’s not many good people out there, at least not ones that can fight like you can. What can I say to convince you?” Aiken holds his hands out, palms up.
I know that this is my cue to milk this place for everything it has, get myself a decent home, some great weapons, a vehicle, and probably a ton of whisky and coffee, and then get the fuck out of here. But the truth is, I don’t want to be that person anymore. I like that Aiken sees me as one of the good guys. I don’t think I’ve ever really been one of those, and I can’t deny the warm fuzzies it gives me. So yes, I want to stay, but I also don’t want to not tell the truth and bring trouble to this group, so I decide to come clean and let Aiken in on my past.
“I’d love to stay.”
“Well that’s great!” He claps his hands together and smiles, the red scar on his cheek rising.
“But I should warn you,” I say, hating to spoil the warm welcome. “I’m being hunted. At least I was being hunted before.” All being well, Nina took out Fallon and the rest are history, but you never know with those guys. And Fallon had lived through a lot worse than a gunshot wound. “They may have even given up hunting me now…now that they’ve taken everything from me,” I say, taking a deep breath. “Either way, I wanted to be upfront and let you know the truth before you make your decision.”
My stomach is in knots as I speak. I want to stay, to do Nina proud and help protect people like she always did. I don’t want to run anymore, hiding from my dirty secrets and even dirtier past, but I come with a lot of baggage, and it may be too heavy for others to carry. I can understand that. Some days I find it too heavy to carry that burden also.
“These people,” Aiken begins, his face a mask of concern.
“The Forgotten,” I say, knowing that to give up the name of the group will be the real clincher. If Aiken has heard of them I’ve probably just fucked myself, and if he hasn’t, well, he probably should if I’m going to stay.
I notice the subtle change in his posture, but his expression doesn’t give anything away.
“They’ve killed to get to you?” he asks, leaning forward, his frown deepening.
“Yeah.”
“So, I’m going to take it that you’re a valuable asset to them.”
“That’s not a question,” I reply, trying to keep my calm, but I’m already disliking the direction of his questions.
Aiken laughs dryly. “No, sir, it’s not. But I should know exactly who you are and why they’re killing people to get to you if I’m going to let you stay. You’ve told me half of the story—now I’m asking for the rest.”
I think over his request for a moment, but it doesn’t take long for me to agree that he should know the full story. So I tell it to him, and I don’t leave anything out. I tell him how I came to be a part of the Forgotten, who they are, and why they are like they are. And I tell him why I left. The death count is high, and the bodies are racked up, but through it all Aiken doesn’t flinch or show any emotion. And then I get to the part about Nina, and how she was the craziest woman I have ever met, and how she sacrificed herself for me and Adam and Joan, and how I let her.
With each word I speak, I feel worse and worse, my decision to leave her behind to save Joan and Adam, like she had asked, feeling like the wrong one.
“So, if she killed him, then maybe it’s over now, maybe it’s not. And if he killed her, he could still be looking for me.” I shake my head, letting my guilty gaze slip from Aiken’s and slide to the floor like a puddle. “But either way, I can’t go back and find out, just in case. Because if I do and they get me, she’ll never forgive me, and it will all have been for nothing. Do you get that, man? Do you understand? So either way, I’ve lost her no matter what.” I think over those words, and how hard they still are to digest.
In a world like this, you get attached to people quickly. It can’t be helped, it’s just nature, because you never know when people will be snatched away from you. You never know when it’s all going to be over. So you love hard, fight hard, give everything, because it’s the only way to live anymore. We, as humanity, have no future. It’s the little minutes, the seconds between waking and sleeping—those are the ones that matter the most. The ones we pray for and hope for. We all want more of those quiet moments where life seems worth a damn again. But there’s never enough of them to go around.
“Unless,” Aiken begins, and I look up, my gaze connecting with his. “Unless she killed him and lived and then came to find you.”
I’ve actually had that same thought too, and it’s one of the only real reasons that going to the island where her parents-in-law lived could still be a viable option. Because I’m pretty sure that’s where she would head too. But if I went there and she didn’t come, then I’d know for certain.
“There’s always that, I guess,” I mumble, my thoughts still lost as I think about the Forgotten and their way of life.
To think I had once been with them and had that same mentality makes me feel sick. But there’s no denying some of the things I’ve done. They’re the things that keep me awake at night when all I want to do is sleep. Especially since Nina had told me what life was really like on the inside of those walled cities—the murder and rape, the starvation. Fallon and his families have a better chance of survival on the outside, but there’s never going to be a way to get him to see that.
Aiken stands up and walks toward the window. His expression is serious and he’s clearly trying to decide if I’m worth the risk or not. I sit in silence, waiting for the axe to descend, and knowing that no matter what happens—if he sends me and Joan away or not—I’m glad that I’ve told him the truth. I’ve already met some good people here, people that don’t deserve to die because of my mistakes. I’ve done that to too many people already, and I won’t let it happen again.
Aiken finally turns around to face me, and I stand up, ready to hear my sentence.
“Well Mikey, I’m not going to lie, that’s a fucked-up story for sure. But,” he walks toward me, “I can see that you’re a good person still. You haven’t let this stuff blacken your soul.”
“I’ve done some bad things, Aiken,” I reply almost immediately, my chin lifted.
He laughs lightly. “We all have, my friend. None of us is blame free. But it’s how you act now that matters to me, and from what I’ve seen you’re worth the risk.”
I stare at him in confusion, because I honestly expected him to kick me out—probably let Joan stay, but I was definitely out of here. And my heart had ached at the thought of Adam. What would I do? How could I find him on my own? But here Aiken is, taking a chance on me, even after I told him the truth about the shit that comes part and parcel with me.
I remember having a similar conversation with JD a long while back—though he hadn’t known the entire truth, of course. Only bits of it. But, like Aiken, he’d taken me on board and let me stay with his group. It hadn’t ended well for him, and I can’t help but worry that it won’t end well for Aiken either.
“At some point we’re probably going to have to face these Forgotten people, but I’m not too concerned by that,” Aiken says with a wave of his hand. “We have a good, strong team here. Everyone can fight to some degree or another, and everyone will. Because that’s what we do here. We stand together, as one force, and we will not be stopped by the evil of this world.”
He holds out his hand and I look down at it and then back up t
o him as I shake it, hard, feeling eternally grateful for this chance.
“I meant what I said to you, Mikey. We’ll do anything to protect each other here. We train each other in whatever skills we have, and we share our rations and knowledge. It’s the only way to make this work. You have a lot of knowledge which I think you could impart on our group…our family, and in turn, we have a lot we can share with you. We are the New Earth Order, and we will bring order to this new earth.”
I nod and smile, uncertain as to what to say to that. The sentiment is great, but it’s also worrying. Have I just jumped from one insane group to another? God, I hope not.
“Now, about your friend out there—Adam, was it?”
“Yeah.”
“Little kid, right?”
“Yes, sir.” I nod.
Aiken rubs a hand over his jaw. “Well, we’ll need to arrange a search party for him. And quickly. I’ll ask O’Donnell to go along—she’s a great tracker and hunter, and a prepper through and through, and so is Ricky, my number one.”
I swallow. “Aiken, if I may, I have a feeling Ricky doesn’t like me too much.” I sound like a kid in school—Ricky won’t be my friend—but still, I feel the obvious need for it to be stated, regardless of how it makes me sound. “Not that I give a shit,” I add on. “But do you really think he’s the best one to come along with us?”
Okay, so maybe I do care how it makes me sound.
Aiken laughs. “He doesn’t like much of anyone these days—at least not until they’ve proved themselves—but he’ll have your back regardless.”
“Because that’s how things are done around here,” I state. It isn’t a question, and if I’m being honest, that unwavering loyalty can be seen as a bad thing as much a good. I saw what it could do when I was a part of the Forgotten.
“Pretty much.”
“So the sheep follow blindly?” I ask, deciding that maybe it’s time for me to see the color of his blood, since he’d seen mine and then gone on to root through the skeletons in my closet.
The Dead Saga (Book 4): Odium IV Page 7
