Gary's Trilogy (Book 3): Still Myself, Still Surviving (The Retaliation)
Page 29
The trees for sure. They’re ones whose naked and stemmed branches stick straight up, like it’s this forest’s own pitchfork rally.
I slow down a little every now and then. I tense up on the steering wheel’s grip. Most of my brain power goes to sharpening my eyesight to be as crisp and clear as it can get. Especially when the road curves sharply to the left or right.
I want to be ready, just in case…
Then I let out a heavy groan of relief and a high-pitched puff of breath, knowing then there’s no roadblock that’s lurking.
You’re moving on from that, Will. It’s over with that part of your life. Sorry, guys, that in many ways you’ve blended in with what I want to move on and away from.
“Perry, Utah!” I motivate myself in a singing voice.
I sing with poor pitch. I’m certain Gary would be able to coach me, but I think I need a break from being coached by him, by others, by the world.
I think I want to coast for a while.
“I’m never gonna love you or hate you again.”
These sung words just come out of me, without much thought put into them. They’re usually sung in the intervals of when I see a road sign that indicates how much farther I have left before leaving Wyoming entirely.
Ain’t no way I’m going down the main highway or interstate. I don’t need another encounter with medieval warriors.
For every time I look in my rearview mirror is the only other time I wince during this road trip.
Just in case.
Listen to the sounds of nature. What’s natural to you as of this point in time is your voice, your steady engine hum, maybe a few passing hoarse yells of undead, and that about sums it up.
Because I’ve grown discomforted too many times from glancing behind, I stop it all together.
Listen, don’t look. When you try to see things for what they are, you end up hearing your unpleasable hindsight forever afterwards.
“Perry, Utah!” I sing again within an imperfect pitch.
Sounds fine to me. Don’t know what you could judge about it, Gary.
It’s relaxing to know how smooth this drive has been so far, disregarding the recklessness of it. But just thinking this instantly causes the discomfort I was feeling a while ago when I forced myself to stop looking in my rearview mirror.
Will there be something that comes out and surprises me? Could be anything. Could be a monkey undead that can swoop from out of the sky and pounce on you. Because you kept the convertible top down. Why’d you leave it down, Will? Snipers could get you.
My thoughts gradually increase in how frequently they replay in my head. They’re worded differently every time, but they always mean the same thing.
You’re not smart.
You’re not reliable.
You’re. Not. Safe.
Thank god there’s not another car on the opposite lane. I roughly swerve in a zig-zag motion for a bit. It started right as I took my right hand off the wheel and curtly swiped the air by my head to knock off the noise.
After I stop the car’s zig-zag swerving, and maintain on one side of the road, I realize why this stress came up again.
I stopped singing, and let myself look at the rearview mirror.
“Quit this mess! You’ve got to let go!” I now sing with R&B style vocals.
I would kill for some R&B music right now…
Maybe “kill” wasn’t the greatest of words to use. But I’ve gone and done it to myself. I can’t scream at myself loud enough in my mind to stop from swerving off the side of the road, right when the “Welcome to Utah!” sign appears.
I keep the ignition running hot, and let the gun I hid in the glove compartment to shine on me again.
I reclaimed this one, the one I threw away in the trash, after Gary insisted I have something dangerous to hold.
So, I took it and I’ve purposefully changed the way I saw it last night. For Gary’s sake, I dismantled what I saw about the gun. Any gun from here on out.
It’s not dangerous. I am.
There’s a lonesome undead that’s been stupidly standing in place by itself. My eyes crudely calculate the distance between it and the car. At its stumbling pace, it grants me the time I need to briefly eject and check the clip.
Looks like eight bullets remain.
Eight opportunities you won’t have to kill like you did, Will. Like before, you have to earn your right to having bullets.
I hear the clicks for both the clip and the slide. It all syncs at once for me. Each bullet wasted is pay back for the headshots I pulled off against those people at the landfill.
The one you’ll utilize to kill this undead won’t count, so it’s really seven you’re apologizing for.
BANG!
All without getting up from my cushioned seat. My cheeks are snug within the imprints its sure to have left at this point, and I succeed without having to properly aim at my target. My good aim pops the body again, again, and again five more times. It’s all done without having to lose the safety of this driver’s seat.
Is it the only safe seat left in the world?
That wasn’t the case before, and it still isn’t.
The passenger side gets dive-bombed by someone who leaps over the locked door, and straight plops onto the seat.
See, Will? Why didn’t you put the top up? Now, you have a complete stranger in your car.
Here he is, putting the seatbelt around his waist, and franticly telling me to drive.
As though he’s a thief, and I’m the getaway.
I instantly backhand the intruder with my pistol. It’s a direct whip to the head. He hisses in pain from the strike, but I don’t have a single sorry bone in me for him.
If I had the bullets…but I wouldn’t use those bullets on him. I won’t use bullets on anyone anymore for the next…seven people, which means I need seven more bullets to waste on just one undead.
“Get out!” I bellow.
“Please, I mean no harm, but the ones over that horizon will—”
Both of us flinch and burrow our heads below our seats as shooters come disrupting the subject of our difference of opinion.
It seems, for your own survival, you have to put each other’s differences aside.
The engine’s rpms jump deep into the red when I stomp the gas. Our backs end up being thrown back against our seats as the world, that sign, and Wyoming all together, is past us. But here’s a new problem.
Us.
“Thanks, man,” this intruder tells me, relief heavy in his voice.
As we continue to speed off, I give him a glare. It’s very rude and forthcoming.
He talks to me like we’ve known each other for a while. Do I have dementia or something?
“Uh, why you think you’re safe with me?” I ask as a threat, and possibly a real one too.
He doesn’t respond to me. My anger grows from it, because he’s too busy grumbling and chuckling to himself. Again, as though we’re good pals.
“Don’t forget,” I pat my gun, which is resting between my crotch, “I’m the one here who could kick you out right now if I wanted.”
“Hehe, I’m sure you could,” he agrees with a light attitude. “Even if your gun’s currently empty, and you’re wanting to make up for it by showing me how boss you are with not being afraid it’s right by your nuggets.”
I stutter in disbelief, but don’t want to confirm he’s right about it. “I’m serious. I want you out.”
“But, come on, bruh,” he whines with a bummed-out attitude.
I can sense his eyes are glinting at me with earnest hope that I too will come around and be friendly. But he’s moving too fast for me to agree that we’re suddenly comrades.
I listen to his lips smack with disappointment. “Fine. Whatevs, man.” He lets his right arm rest on his door to hold his head up. “I was needing a ride anyway. Take me to Perry.”
In my sudden blinking from surprise. He notices and asks what’s wrong. I slow the car down u
ntil the only movement comes from a neutral roll. “Wait.” My eyes blink rapidly before I finally look at him. “You’re going to Perry, Utah?”
My question seems to lift his spirits up. His sitting position was low and slumped, but he now bounces up off his seat to resituate both himself and his energy. “Yeah! You going there too?”
Everything about this man’s personality is strange to me, but not the kind where I want to beat him up for it. It’s the kind where the perkiness and uniqueness is one I’ve not been accustomed to in a long time.
Like Cher. She always seemed in a positive flow. I’m not saying she was inhuman in that way, where she couldn’t get upset or sad like all of us, but people like she was, like this man, will find a way to rise back from a bad situation. They’ll always find a way to wag their invisible tail.
“What’s waiting for you in Perry?” I ask.
“It’s where I live. I got my own house, guarded system, all of that.”
Here’s where I stop our neutral roll, and press on the brakes. He must’ve taken my stoic expression combined with stopping us as a bad sign. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I got you, man, I-I, eh, you want me out? I’m going.”
I know I don’t have to be him anymore, but what would Gary do in this situation?
“No.” I breathe, take my hands off the steering wheel, and lock them together, letting my hands squeeze it. I’m secretly calming my nerves at the same time while doing it.
You might be dealing with the wrong man here, but just give him a chance. This might be God’s blessing in disguise.
“Just. Stay.”
His body’s already midway out of the door. There’s a silly expression on his face. Humor is clearly his remedy for any uncomfortable situation he’s ever in. That much I can tell. What else I can tell is his extremely long, ash-blond hair rarely stays where it belongs. His mouth continues to blow off strands that happen to fall in his face as he scavenges for whatever he dropped under the car seat.
Actually, I squint hard at his lips, the way I squinted when going down those curved roads earlier.
“Uh, what’re you staring at?”
“Do you have red lipstick on?”
“Oh, ha ha,” he cackles while becoming comfortable enough to sit back in his seat. “I got it put on two nights ago. I guess I didn’t wipe it all off.”
The shirt he seems to be wearing is a female’s. At first glance, I didn’t notice, but because I’m purposefully working to gauge his overall being, now I can’t not notice his shirt’s shoulder sleeves have a little squares of lace, so each arm’s bare skin can show.
Am I dealing with someone who’s crazy, or just crazily different?
“Are you with a group?” I get hung up on this question, because he doesn’t flat-out tell me a direct answer.
“Well, I-I mean I was, maybe am still, who-who knows if our lead, G. Nillo, will call again—”
“Excuse me?” I raise up, hushing his frantic speech. “Did you just say ‘G. Nillo’?”
It couldn’t be! That was the celebrity name of…
He lets out a soft laugh as his thumbs rub against his dark eyebrows, massaging his forehead. What unsettles me the most is his near-silent counting of numbers, all while staring past me, and basically looking through me.
He could be aware I find this odd—shit anybody would—and is trying to keep to himself whatever self-calming practice he’s got working.
His eyes widen as he sniffs in a ferocious-sounding inhale. His next excitable act is to stretch his hand out straight into my line of sight. “Hi, my name’s Gabe. It’s a pleasure for our journeys to mesh together.”
He’s operating on a whole different level.
Those eyes move about, flitting everywhere. It’s as though he’s thinking about numerous things all in this span of time when he should just be focused on receiving a handshake.
But apparently I’ve done something to assure him he can be himself around me, otherwise he wouldn’t be this much himself.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned from being near the group, Gary, or “G. Nillo”, it’s that you don’t back down on making a friend if you can. This world’s already got enough potential enemies around every corner.
“Will,” I offer out my hand to his. “What, uh, what were you running from exactly?”
“Oh, that?” Gabe says it as though this subject’s a breezy topic he’s already shrugged off the stress. “That was from me robbing my monthly supplier.”
“Supplier? Of what, exactly?”
Gabe holds his index finger up for me to wait as he bends down below his seat. “Tada!”
“That’s…a string.”
“Yeah! The E string on my bass broke earlier than it should’ve.” He talks as he lets the string zip its grooves under his finger nails. He’s practically playing with it. “I had to get a new one before my supplier possibly gave it to someone else.”
“You came all the way out here for a string?”
“My other broke before this month’s end.”
I chuckle, baffled and somewhat amazed. I tilt my head back. “You do realize the month’s almost over, don’t you?”
“Hey, what my priorities are are my business, ‘k? I’m good on my food and defenses.”
“Do they supply those things too?” My question is a little judgmental, but it’s mainly meant to help lighten my own mood.
“I’m perfectly good on that. You see, Perry’s full of different dealers and service providers.” This is when he proudly points his thumb to his chest. “I know all of them, and they happily know me. I’ve played my cards right this last year. No one ever hassles me.”
What kind of place were you leading us into, Gary? I guess if you and the others end up coming, we’ll get together and ask the questions then.
I scratch my head, but I do it so it excuses why I planted my palm on the side of my face. It’s from being overwhelmed.
What are the chances of this happening? Of all the survivors in the ruined world, how did I end up rescuing someone from Gary’s past?
God makes no coincidences, Will. He put you here for a reason.
Time’s wasting as I keep us stopped. Some of the undead we sped by are starting to catch up from behind. That’s how much time has passed.
The dealers Gabe set off might still be on the move.
I put us in a neutral roll again, and let the gas slowly accelerate the car. This is my ultimate response for Gabe to know I’ve accepted his presence here. Furthermore, it’s also me silently asking him to give me directions on how to get to his home.
Gabe’s way of showing me appreciation is a broad grin. He immediately starts telling me which roads to go on. He also calls me “bruh” at the end of each statement he makes.
Again, all of this, is as though we’ve been friends for a long time.
Maybe God put me here, but I’ll stop you, Gabe, if you try and double-cross me. Maybe it won’t be with a gun, but I’ll stop you from doing wrong towards me. I’d hate if you proved my fears right though. And, I’d hate to have to take out someone who sounded pretty dang close to the famous Gary Nillon…
Coincidence and fate.
You also sound like you still got fame and glamour in you too.
Let’s see how far that gets us here…
About Author
Marlin Grail writes his thrilling stories for the response of suspense. The confines of his creative mind know no boundaries, just like his actual life. He currently lives in Georgia, but enjoys the idea of being one who travels throughout his life. Most of his time is devoted to physical activity, along with anything else creatively-productive aside from his writing. When relaxing, he finds comfort in reading, watching shows, and spending time with his friends and relatives.
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Special Message From Marlin, To You:
Gary’s life-alt
ering journey may be coming to a close, but this dark apocalypse is far from ending. Others like him, or complete opposite even, will be tossed into situations and environments they couldn’t have ever imagined they’d be in. Some might become better people for it. Some might lose themselves entirely.
Like Gary, everyone has a choice in how they take in their problems. For him, he hasn’t been shattered by all he’s been exposed to. Yet, with what you’ve been shown, can you say that goes for everyone?
Will the next protagonist be their own Gary, or the next C.?
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII
Chapter XVIII
Chapter XIX
Chapter XX
Chapter XXI
Chapter XXII
Chapter XXIII
Chapter XXIV
Chapter XXV
Chapter XXVI
Chapter XXVII
Chapter XXVIII
Chapter XXIX
Chapter XXX
Chapter XXXI
Chapter XXXII
Chapter XXXIII
Chapter XXXIV
Chapter XXXV
Chapter XXXVI
Chapter XXXVII
Chapter XXXVIII
Chapter XXXIX
Chapter XL
Chapter XLI
Chapter XLII
Chapter XLIII
Chapter XLIV
Chapter XLV
Chapter XLVI
Chapter XLVII
Chapter XLVIII
Chapter XLIX
Chapter L
Chapter LI
Chapter LII
Chapter LIII
Chapter LIV
Chapter LV
Chapter LVI
Chapter LVII
Chapter LVIII