Abby spent the rest of the day in a kind of dull half-existence. She managed to keep up a cheery façade during dance practice, and afterwards both she and Luke got together to discuss making a few minor changes to their parts, and then decided to start practicing them on their own time, along with a couple of the other dancers that they interacted with during the performance.
Luke then walked Abby home, knowing that she was still feeling upset that Zach was gone. Abby had not asked him to, but she was immensely appreciative of his concern for her and the kindness he showed her. When they got to her apartment building, she hugged him before going inside. She was starting to like Luke a lot, she realized, and she could hardly wait to see him again the next day at school.
After doing her homework, Abby went over to Amber and Al’s to have dinner with them, and then went back to her own apartment. She practiced her dance routine for a couple of hours, showered, started reading Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott (one of Zach’s favorites), and then went to bed. She was exhausted and so quickly fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
***
It was still dark when Zach arrived at the Town Hall with Ross. They showed up at a quarter to five and were the first ones there. The other thirteen men slowly trickled in over the next fifteen minutes, and by five o’clock they were all assembled. Large amounts of food and water was waiting for them, so Zach took the initiative and began splitting up the supplies. There was extra stuff that was for the survivors, should they need it, so there was plenty to go around.
By the time all the supplies had been divvied out evenly, or as evenly as possible, everyone’s pack was bulging and heavy. Zach, in a characteristic move, gave himself more supplies than anyone else, even though Ross had done his best to get the lion’s share of the weight.
Mayor Calvin showed up a few minutes after five to see the search and rescue party off. He pulled Zach aside to give him some last minute instructions, but in his heart he knew that Zach would know what to do and would not fail. The Mayor then gave a short speech to all fifteen of the men, thanking them for the service they were rendering for the good of humanity and wished them Godspeed and a safe voyage. And with that said, the party headed towards the eastern gate and then out, into the Wild.
Zach held the group to a strong pace, moving steadily at three miles an hour, though sometimes increasing it to four. He wanted to reach the survivors as soon as possible to ensure their safety, but his ulterior motive that he kept to himself was so that he could get back in time to see Abby’s dance performance. He had done some calculations in his head the night prior, and judged that he would get back on the morning of her birthday if he kept up the pace they were going at now.
After only a few hours of moving, Zach found that he already missed Abby. He had never gone on an extended movement without her, and the absence of her cheery voice and ceaseless optimism was sorely missed. He felt like someone had smitten the sun in half, and the world around him seemed duller and less interesting. He wished he could have brought her along, but of course that would have been a stupid thing to do.
Their first day of travel were uneventful and they saw nobody along their way. But on the morning of the second day, Zach’s posse encountered a tragic sight: two dead bodies leaning against a tree. The corpses had suffered only mild decomposition, which meant that they could have died as recently as a day or two ago.
One of the corpses was an old man, probably in his sixties, and the other was a woman of about the same age, and both were sickly thin. One might have surmised that they died of starvation were it not for the bullet holes in their foreheads. The man clutched a dirty revolver in one hand and with his other he held the clasped hands of the woman who, as evidenced by their wedding rings, was the man’s wife.
It looked like the man had mercifully killed his wife and then shot himself, but why? Zach stepped closer and that’s when he saw the bite wound on the woman’s arm.
“Christ,” Zach muttered, shaking his head. If only they had lasted a few more days, they might have run into Zach’s expedition and could have gotten help. Zach wondered what they had been like in life. What were their names? How long had they been married? Did they have any children? Had they lived the lives they dreamed about when they were just starry-eyed youngsters? No matter. They were gone now.
Zach got up and fell back in next to Ross, who had waited for him a few meters away while the rest of the group kept walking, albeit slowly and quietly out of respect for the dead.
“It’s a cruel world,” Ross said.
“Yeah,” Zach replied. The world was cruel, and that’s why people needed to be especially good. That’s probably what Abby would have said if she was here, Zach thought.
***
It was Monday, the fourth day of Zach’s journey, and Abby was back to her normal, happy self. She still thought about Zach frequently, but she knew that if anyone could survive out in the Wild, it was him.
School was done for the day and Abby had already changed into her pink sweatpants and t-shirt for dance. Much to her dismay, Luke would not be there today; it was his mother’s birthday, so he was going home to celebrate with his family, which Mrs. Wilkes said was okay. So Abby was waiting for Luke to come outside so she could at least walk with him to the edge of school property, getting an extra minute to spend with him.
He finally showed up outside, and they began to talk as they walked across the grass. “So are you going to be able to come over tomorrow to practice our dance? Pam and Molly are gonna be there,” Abby said.
“Yeah, definitely. Sorry I can’t come today, but my mom really wanted me to be home for her birthday.”
“Oh, I completely understand, don’t worry. So tomorrow at five?”
“Sure. I can do that.”
“Okay. See you tomorrow then!” Abby said. She hugged Luke goodbye and then turned back towards the school. As she walked back across the grass, she passed near a group of three older boys standing around, talking loudly. Abby thought they looked familiar, and was pretty sure that they were seventeen or eighteen. The tallest of the three, a boy with dark, curly hair, even had a beard coming in. Abby ended up getting close enough to them to hear a snippet of their conversation.
“…was a nuclear engineer in the ‘Before Times’. Being reduced to a common electrician really pissed him off,” said the boy with red hair.
“Man, my dad was never anything that cool. But he still made a lot of money. Now he’s just a store clerk,” the third boy said.
The boy with the beard said, “Hey, at least he didn’t get dumped into the Town Guard with all those other losers. The ‘participation trophy gang’ is what my dad and I call them.” The boys all laughed at this.
Abby heard this and stopped, taking offense on Zach’s behalf. She might have let this slide had Zach not been out in the Wild right now, but her cheeks flushed with anger as the boys laughed loudly, and then she said, “Hey, shut your mouth!”
The three boys all turned to her, grins still plastered on their faces. The boy with the black hair said, “Get lost, kid. No one’s talking to you.”
“Not until you apologize. My dad is the one who helps train the Town Guard and he is not a loser.”
“Apologize for what?” the black-haired boy said as he took three quick, decisive strides towards Abby, hoping to scare her, but she stood her ground. “Apologize that your dad is a no-good, can’t-hack-it, shit-for-brains retard like everyone else in the Guard?”
Abby was getting very angry now as she glared up at the older boy. She clenched her fists and said, “He’s not any of that! He’s a great father and a real man, something that you will never be! Mayor Calvin personally asked for him to lead a search and rescue operation into the Wild!”
The black-haired boy mocked her by parroting her words in a high-pitched, whiny voice. “Like I give a damn! That just shows how useless your dad is: he’s worth more as zombie fodder out there than he is as a person in here. I hope he gets chewed up by
zombies and dies! In fact, I bet it already happened!” Then he laughed in Abby’s face, but only for a moment.
Abby pounced on him, grabbing his right wrist with her left hand and wrapping her right arm around his waist. The boy thought she was trying to shove him down, but then she dug her feet into the ground and torqued her body to the left, lifting the older boy off his feet while simultaneously sweeping his leg out from underneath him, throwing him to the ground with a classic hip toss. She quickly mounted him and then hit him in the nose with a right-handed palm-heel strike, which was followed by her left fist hitting him in the chin.
He lunged up at her with both hands, trying to grab Abby by the throat, but she wrapped her arms around his left arm and pressed down on his chest with her hands, trapping the arm. She then quickly sat up and threw her hips around so that her body was perpendicular to the boy’s while firmly grasping his left forearm with both hands. She trapped his arm between her thighs with his elbow facing the ground, then leaned back and pulled down on his forearm, locking him in a deep arm-bar.
“Take it back!” she yelled.
“Help me, dipshits!” the boy hissed at his two friends as he writhed in agony on the ground, but the other boys had already backed off several feet. They had not expected Abby to fight at all, let alone win, and now they were scared of her.
“Take it back!” Abby yelled again, putting more pressure on the boy’s elbow. She could feel it popping and knew that it would break if she put any more pressure on it.
“Abby, stop it! Stop it right now!” said Diane as she ran up towards the fight. Abby looked over at her and then released the boy and quickly got to her feet.
“What is going on here?” Diane demanded loudly with her fists on her hips.
“This crazy bitch attacked me!” the older boy said as he staggered to his feet and cradled his arm.
“Watch your language, young man!” Diane said. She turned to Abby and said, “Is this true?”
“He was making fun of Zach and said he was gonna die!” Abby protested loudly.
“Blake! That is a dreadful thing to say!” Diane said to the boy, who said nothing to the contrary but only glared angrily at Abby. Her gaze met his, and Diane could see the rage in her hard grey eyes that were usually so soft and kind.
“But that was not how a young lady should react, Abigail,” Diane continued. “I want you both to apologize, and then we’ll put this behind us.”
Neither Blake nor Abby said anything for a moment, and the air between them was still a no-man’s-land, pockmarked by artillery barrages from their eyes. But Blake finally relented under Abby’s powerful gaze.
“Sorry,” he muttered, his words falling to his shoes.
“Sorry,” Abby replied, spitting the word out like poison in her mouth.
“Now was that so hard? Blake, you and your friends go home. Abby, you go to your dance practice,” Diane said.
The group of boys trudged slowly away, each of them exchanging a quick, fearful glance with Abby. That a tiny, fourteen year old girl could fight like that had utterly shocked them, and Abby met each of their stares with a defiant look, barely able to hold back from giving them a proud, smug grin.
She would be lying if she said that nearly breaking Blake’s arm hadn’t brought her satisfaction. She may be a small girl, but she was dangerous in a fight. Zach had made sure of that. Now maybe Blake and those other boys would think twice before saying such mean things to somebody.
Once the boys were out of earshot, Diane turned back to Abby and said, “Abby, dear, you know that was wrong.”
“I know. But-” Abby started to say.
“Yes, he said an awful thing. But you know better than to resort to violence like that. I know you know better. Do you think Zach would be happy with how you reacted?”
Actually, he would be, Abby thought. She knew him, and knew that he would probably even have offered her advice on how she could have fought the boy better, or suggested a more devastating, incapacitating technique she could have used. But she kept this to herself and just shook her head in response.
“I know you miss him, honey,” Diane said softly, “and it’s stressing you out. Both of us are missing a part of our hearts right now, but they’ll be back before we know it, okay?” Diane hugged Abby and then said, “Now run along to your practice. I can’t wait to see your show!”
“Thanks, Diane. See you later!” Abby replied as she walked back into the school.
***
Dawn rose on the fourth day of Zach’s journey and he watched as Apollo’s fiery chariot began its day-long trek across the sky. It was a beautiful morning, and it reminded Zach of that one morning long ago when they arrived at the Marshall Farm. He sucked in a breath and blew it out loudly, wondering how such a gorgeous dawn could have been the herald for such a horrible day.
Zach had expected to locate the settlement by the end of the third day of their journey, but they still had not reached their objective by the time night fell. This frustrated Zach. At this rate, he would not be back in time for Abby’s birthday and dance performance. They needed to move faster.
Last night, as the squad of men prepared to set up camp, Zach, Ross, and one other man got together to discuss their situation. They did not have an unlimited source of supplies, so they could not afford to spend forever wandering around the Wild looking for this settlement, which they should have reached by now, according to Zach’s map. They had also gotten very lucky so far, and had not encountered any zombies or raiders. Such luck would not last forever.
They decided that they would spend one more day looking for the settlement before turning around and heading back to Little America. They would keep going on the course that Zach had plotted out on the map and see if perhaps the distance had just been miscalculated, which was the best case scenario.
And so that morning Zach’s group once again began walking on their eastern course. Zach was still missing Abby almost every minute of every day, but as time went by he found himself thinking more and more of Amber. Even after only knowing each other for a couple of months, he had so many wonderful memories of her, and it was these that kept him going. He couldn’t wait to see her again, to hold her and kiss her again.
But he did not have much time to miss either Amber or Abby this morning. They had only been traveling for an hour when they finally found the settlement they were looking for. Sitting near a freeway and another major road was a huge, blue and yellow IKEA building with a gigantic parking lot.
Cars that were pockmarked with bullet holes were scattered across the property. Tents and make-shift shelters were also riddled with bullet holes or knocked over and trampled on, all of which were evidence of a struggle having taken place. Trash was strewn across the lot, and shopping carts filled with random odds and ends were rolled up against the buildings or tipped over. Even from a distance Zach could see plenty of blood stains on the concrete, but no bodies could be seen.
They approached slowly from the west and found a man sitting in a folding chair next to a small wooden shack. He had very short, buzzed black hair and black stubble on his cheeks and jaw. He wore a brown, sleeveless shirt, old Army trousers and a pair of dirty brown boots. Colorful sleeve tattoos covered his muscular arms and Zach could see more ink around his shoulders and shoulder blades. He had a leath holster on his hip, and an old-school, .45 caliber Colt revolver was stuffed into it, the kind of gun that 19th century cowboys might have carried.
When the man saw Zach and the others approaching, he got to his feet and spoke with a thick Irish accent, “Who are you?”
“We’re from Little America. We’re here to help,” Zach answered.
The man smiled wide when he heard this and kissed the tiny silver cross he wore around his neck. Looking back to Zach, he said, “Oh, thank Christ. Come in, come on! The others are inside!” He stood up quickly and motioned for the posse to follow him.
“We’ll be leaving right away, just gotta gather a few things,” he
explained as he led them across the lot.
“So only eight of you survived the attack?” Zach asked.
“Hard to believe, eh? That attack came outta nowhere,” the man replied, shaking his head. He pulled out a red handkerchief, snapped it open with a flourish, and then wiped some sweat from his forehead before stuffing it back into his pocket.
Zach looked around the parking lot: something seemed wrong to him. Mayor Calvin had told him that a fire had been started during the initial panic of the zombie attack, destroying the settlement’s stores of food and water, but there was absolutely no sign of a fire in the parking lot or the IKEA building. And the place did not look like it had been terrorized by zombies. In fact, Zach thought it looked more like it had been ransacked by some war band.
Those red flags in his mind were hard at work again. He had all the pieces of the puzzle, but he was not able to put them together just yet. It was like his mind was playing Tetris with all of these bad feelings he was getting, and he was waiting for just the right piece to appear in the queue. A faint sound reached Zach’s ears, the sound of engines quietly purring to life. People in trucks were nearby, but whom? Zach studied the man in front of him. Something about him seemed wrong too, but what was it? A realization suddenly dawned on Zach. That bright red bandana, had that been a signal of some kind?
A large group of armed men, all of them wearing red, suddenly burst out of the main entrance to the IKEA, pointing various types of pistols, shotguns, and rifles at Zach and his guys. More armed men appeared on the roof, and suddenly the quiet purring of engines that Zach had heard moments ago became a loud roar as trucks, big trucks judging from the sound, drove closer. Zach and the others never stood a chance; they were outnumbered by at least thirty.
“Stand down,” Zach said to his men. They looked like they would rather go down fighting, but Zach was their leader so they complied with his instructions. They set their weapons down and put their arms up as several of the armed men came forward to collect their guns.
His Name Was Zach Page 27
