“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.
His smirk grows wider. “The sheep are led to where the food, warm beds, and safety are at, because they want to sleep soundly at night knowing that they’re not going to be chewed up out there.” He jerks his thumb toward the window. “Plus, I’ve heard the shepherd is a handsome fucker.”
I burst out laughing, unable to contain my surprise. Aiken laughs too and then pats me on the back.
“Look, we don’t go around killing strangers, but we only take in those that we think will be good for the group—people that can give as well as take. You must know that. We do things as a team, a group…a family, if that suits. We protect each other at all costs. We don’t murder and maim on a whim, we don’t execute people because they have what we want or they look at us the wrong way. We give a shit about our people.” He shrugs. “About all people, but not everyone has something to offer, and we don’t take in leeches. Is that what you want to hear?”
“Pretty much, yeah.” I nod.
“We’re trying to build something good here, a society of like-minded people who want to save this country, each other—hell, maybe even the world. You don’t have to stay, you can go, but like I said last night, we could use someone like you here. We can never have enough fighters with a conscience.”
I open my mouth to speak, but voices can be heard coming in from the front door, and I recognize one voice in particular right away: Joan’s.
She comes into the room, followed by a woman and teenager. Joan is the only one smiling.
“Aiken, I’m done. I can’t spend another goddamned minute with her!” the woman says, ignoring the scowl from Joan.
“I was only singing in the shower!” Joan says, placing her hands on her hips.
“You sang—”
“Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall?” I interrupt.
Chapter Ten
The other woman stops talking and stares at me. “Yeah, actually.”
I laugh. “I told you to stay out of trouble, Crazy Pants.”
“I was only singing!”
“It was annoying!” the teenager says, on her face a look of fearless defiance that only a teenager could have. “Really fucking annoying!”
“Language, Moo!” the other woman snaps.
Joan steps forward and jabs a bony finger toward the woman and Moo. “Poppycock! My fella used to love my singing. It’s you and all of your teenage gangster rap. A cuss word in every sentence and grabbing your crotches like you’re trying to hold your pants up! Your music insults the blacks, the whites, and calls all women bitches! Now that’s annoying, young lady!” Joan glares at Moo.
“I wasn’t even playing any music, you crazy old bat. It was five a.m.!” Moo yells loud enough to make my ears ring. A teenager’s fury knows no bounds.
“What? So now you’re the timekeeper?” Joan replies indignantly.
I try not to laugh, but it’s hard not to because for once I’m not stuck in the middle of Joan’s craziness and I can appreciate the humor in it.
“All right, all right,” Aiken says, his voice commanding everyone’s silence and respect in equal measures. “Joan, is it? No more singing unless you’re on your own, you got that? That’s an order.”
Joan nods and sticks her tongue out at the teenage girl as if she’s won the argument.
“SJ, meet our new recruit Mikey,” Aiken says, introducing me.
SJ reaches over to shake my hand. Her grip is firm, though her hands are soft. “Pleased to meet you. This is my daughter Moo.”
I nod at both of them, happy to see a gun at both of their hips. Nothing pleases me more than seeing that. It means that there’s enough trust between everyone to deem it acceptable. It means that no one walks around unarmed. And it means that Aiken wasn’t bullshitting me when he said that everyone here pitches in when it comes to jobs and fighting.
“Is she a friend of yours?” SJ says, jabbing a thumb in Joan’s direction.
I glance at Joan, who’s currently picking her nose and wiping it down her shirt, and I hesitate, wanting to say no, but in the realm of being truthful about everything I can’t deny Joan completely.
“Yeah, sort of,” I relent. “I’ve been entrusted to keep her alive.”
“Well, she has no skills, she’s batshit crazy, and she’s annoying as fuck. She can’t stay,” SJ says to me before turning her gaze to Aiken. “Please say she can’t stay!”
Aiken rubs a hand over his jaw, his gaze slipping from SJ to Joan before coming back around to me. “Unless she’s got a skill, she can’t stay, Mikey.” He shrugs, and I know he’s serious. Especially after the speech he just gave me about what this new society is all about.
I look toward Joan, who at least has the decency to look worried.
“Joan?” I plead. Because I’m hoping she’s going to pull something out of the bag, because I don’t want to leave her, but I can’t let her go out there alone either. And of course, the bigger issue is, I need the NEOs help me find Adam.
Joan puts her hands on her hips and blows some loose hair out of her face like she’s flustered and frustrated with all of us. And perhaps she is. Perhaps in her world, we’re the ones inconveniencing her.
“Well, I’ll tell you, I’m offended. No, more than that, scratch that off completely, wipe the sides and dust the shelves, vacuum the floor and maybe even mop up too. Because that’s how hurt I am that you all think I have no skills.” Joan feigns tears, but none of us are convinced.
She blows at the hair in her face again, going a little cross-eyed as she does.
Aiken looks to me and purses his lips, and I notice SJ and Moo are both smiling, happy in the thought that they’ve gotten rid of their new annoying-as-hell neighbor.
Ricky comes in from the hallway and looks at Joan. I wonder how long he’s been standing there listening in on everyone’s conversation. “We’ll take you somewhere safe, ma’am,” he says to Joan. “Give you some food and a pistol. You’ll be okay.” He smiles as if dropping this crazy bitch off in the middle of a zombie-riddled world with a picnic and a handgun isn’t the worst thing he’s ever done in his life.
Joan reaches back and slaps him across the face as hard as she can, and I’m already guessing the handprint is going to stay there for at least the next hour or two. The poor guy looks stunned into submission and I have to hold back the laugh I want to release.
“I’ll have you know that I have many skills, young man. Many!” she snaps, and then glares over at Aiken. “I can cook, I can sew, I can knit, and I can bake. I can make clothes, blankets, hats, scarves, coats, gloves, teddy bears, curtains, practically anything with wool. And did I mention that I can sew?” She looks furiously around at everyone. “And, did I mention that I can knit?” She folds her arms in front of her chest and raises a gray, bushy eyebrow at Ricky, who’s itching to pull out his gun on her, by his angry expression when he looks Aiken’s way. “And bake!”
Joan gaze snakes Ricky up and down. “And you, sir, you need some new shirts, I bet—not to mention that I bet your socks haven’t been darned in many months.”
Silence falls around the room as everyone takes in Joan’s furious glare at Ricky, and then Aiken suddenly throws his head back and barks out a laugh. When he manages to compose himself, he claps his hands and looks over at Ricky. “Well, it’s settled then. She stays.” He glances at me. “And Mikey stays. So, welcome to Haven, friends, and welcome to the New Earth Order!”
SJ and Moo glare at Aiken and storm out of the room. “She’s not staying with us!” SJ calls back as she leaves Aiken’s house. I glance at Aiken but he’s just grinning.
“She’s a feisty one,” he says. “But she’ll come around.”
“I need to go search for Adam today. He won’t survive out there without us,” I say, suddenly feeling sick at the thought that we left him
out there all alone. At the time it seemed like we didn’t have a choice. I was injured, bleeding to death, deaders were on the way—not to mention the wild dogs, which are still out there somewhere. But when you strip it all back, the truth is, we left a little boy out in the middle of nowhere with danger all around him. And whereas last night I wasn’t so sure what Nina would have done in that situation, now it’s all too clear to me: she would never have left him.
Aiken nods, his expression serious. “Like I said, O’Donnell and Ricky will go with you.” He glances over as Phil comes back in. “Phil? You happy to help out on an S&R?”
Phil comes farther into the room. “Of course, anything for this dude. Me and Fluffy would be happy to help.”
“Well, it’s decided then. Grab some gear and get going. This is a rescue mission, and time is of the essence, people.”
“Can I come?” Joan asks, and from her grave expression she’s being serious, but there isn’t a chance in hell that I’m bringing her with me.
I shake my head. “No, I need you to stay here.”
Joan practically snarls at me, baring her teeth like a vicious dog. The image sends a shiver down my spine and a throb through my bite mark.
“I want to help,” Joan says, her wrinkled mouth pursed in frustration.
Everyone takes that moment to leave the room, realizing the tension of the situation, and I try to choose my words carefully so as not to rile her up any more. The truth is, if she wants to come I can’t stop her. But she would only end up causing me more grief out there on the road.
“I need to do this on my own. I need eyes here, making sure this place is safe enough to bring the boy back to,” I say calmly, hoping to get through to her.
“I can help though,” she says, grabbing the knitting needles from the long, deep pockets of her floral skirt and thrusting them forward like she’s spearing a fish. “I know I’m not always…with it.” She looks into my face, the gray of her eyes holding me steady. “But I can fight, and I’ll fight for that little boy.”
And by God, I believe her. She isn’t the weak and feeble old lady that she lets people think. She’s a survivor, and you can’t train for that sort of thing. You either have it or you don’t.
I place a hand on her shoulder. “I know, Joan, I know you will. But I made a promise to keep you and Adam safe, and so far I’m not doing too good a job. Taking you back out there, back into that hell beyond these walls, that’s not a good way to keep you alive. At least if I know that you’re here, keeping your eyes and ears to the ground for me, I’ll be able to concentrate on finding Adam and bringing him back alive.”
I realize that I’m being genuine in everything I say to her, and I’m not certain who’s more surprised by that fact—me or Joan. I guess the old broad has grown on me.
“I’ll hold down the fort here then,” she says, clearly unhappy still, but relenting anyway. “Make sure it’s safe to bring the little one back to. That sound good?”
I smile and nod. “That sounds perfect, Joan.”
She smiles at me, a giant-assed beaming smile that ignites a spark in her eyes. “You called me by my name.”
“You’re one of the team now,” I say with a smile. “Now let me go find the kid.”
She reaches out and puts a hand on my shoulder. “All right, Mikey. I’ve got your back. I’ll keep this place safer than a wax model in a candle factory.”
She turns on her heel and walks away, and I stare after her, fucking clueless as to what she means. Seconds later, Phil and Ricky come back into the room. Phil is grinning, and Ricky has his stony-faced expression still on, but I know that both of them have been listening in on the conversation I just had. I feel a pang of unease that they heard me say I didn’t entirely trust this group yet, but if either of them thinks anything about it, neither of them say anything.
We head out and load up a truck with supplies. Mainly weapons—guns and knives, of which the NEOs thankfully seem to have an abundance. Phil has a long goodbye with Aimee until Fluffy begins to bark to get his attention. They kiss one last time and then Alfie is pulling back the gate and letting us out of Haven. I watch through the back window of the truck with unease until the gate is closed and Haven is out of sight.
Phil and O’Donnell talk nonstop about mundane shit, and I join in every once in a while. Ricky is driving and is silent the entire time. I’m not sure whether it’s me or if he’s just not a chatty guy, but I try to appear nonchalant about his silence and listen to what Phil and O’Donnell are saying. Mostly, though, I watch the world pass me by and I silently pray to God that Adam is okay.
The journey seems much longer as we head back to the spot in the road where we were ambushed by the killer hounds, and we all get out of the vehicle. I know it’s this exact spot, not just by the farmhouse that we stop outside of, but because of the deaders on their knees chewing on the parts of dead dog that we left in the road the previous night.
“That’s gross,” O’Donnell says, jumping down the last step, her gaze directed toward the three deaders on their hands and knees. She’s wearing figure-hugging shorts that make it hard for me and Ricky to take our eyes off of her ass. She sees us looking and grins before shaking her head. “It would be great if either of you could help out instead of gawping at me.”
I look away first, with thoughts of Nina in my head. I move past O’Donnell and head toward the deaders on their knees. She was completely accurate though: it really is gross.
One of them is licking at the ground where I almost bled out, and I decide that that particular deader is mine. If it really wants to taste me that much, then it can fight me for the fucking privilege.
I step up to it as Ricky and O’Donnell make easy business of the other two. It doesn’t seem to notice me for a moment, but then like a sixth sense its head turns as it lifts its face to the air and begins to sniff me out. It eventually glances back over its rotten shoulder and our gazes collide. The deader is young—just a kid, really—and part of me expects it to be Adam.
I can’t say that part of me doesn’t want that to be the case. At least then the guilt that’s been eating away at me would be over with. I could get on with the damage control instead of feeling like a piece of shit for leaving him out here all night. I guess that makes me a coward. I want to hurry up and find his dead body because I know he’s already gone, yet until I find him I can never rest easy again. It’s a shitty thing to think, but the thoughts are still there no matter how shitty I feel about them.
Besides, this world is no place for a child. What chance does he have when all anyone can offer him is relative safety behind some walls until he’s old enough to have to be useful to someone?
Old enough to fight, old enough to die, is all I can think.
But of course it isn’t Adam. It’s just some other poor dead kid that was unlucky enough to get killed at some point, only to wake and find himself with an unquenchable thirst for human blood and meat. Probably killed by his own parents, who had loved him dearly right up until the point that the hunger that drove them onwards was more important than the person they had created and brought into this world.
I don’t use the gun at my hip, instead favoring the freshly sharpened hatchet that Phil gave me. I raise it up as the deader kid stands and groans, its gray rotten hands reaching for me like I’m an ice-cream cone. I slice right across the top of its head, through the center of its forehead so that I chop its brain in half, and it dies instantly. The machete sticks halfway through, which is annoying, but at least I’ve killed it.
I kick the kid in the chest, but the hatchet is lodged in its skull tight so I have to kick several times while simultaneously holding onto the handle of the hatchet before finally dislodging it from its skull. It falls backwards like a sack of rotten meat, its blank-eyed stare looking out across the blacktop as if hoping someone is coming to give it a ride to wherever it needs to go. But its journey is finally over and no one is coming to save it. Him.
Unlike Ad
am. I will find him and save him. I have to, I think grimly.
“Thought that was gonna be a keeper,” Phil laughs. Fluffy is standing by his side and she gives a small woof of agreement.
I wipe off my blade on the back of the deader, no time for sentiments. “A keeper?” I raise an eyebrow.
O’Donnell comes over to stand with us, a smile on her face. She’s an attractive woman—long, dark wavy hair and a full hourglass figure. She reminds me a little of Nina, barring the biting attitude and roll of the eyes.
“He’s talking about Moo, SJ’s daughter. She likes to keep the heads as trophies.” O’Donnell laughs but I can see she doesn’t really think it’s funny.
“Seriously?” I say, trying to hide the disgust from my voice. Because in truth, I can’t help thinking that if my kid wanted to keep the heads of deaders as trophies, I’d be booking her in for therapy ASAP, because that’s disturbing.
“Yeah, sick little fuck.” Phil laughs with genuine amusement, not seeming too concerned at all.
“Let’s go check out the farmhouse,” Ricky says, avoiding the conversation altogether. He’s an all business/no pleasure kind of guy for sure.
“Sure,” I agree. I look toward the edge of the field, to the overgrown crops and weeds that are waving in the breeze like a welcome kite. “We should probably check in there at some point too,” I say.
Phil’s face falls for the first time since I met him. “That’s going to be fun,” he says sarcastically. “I always wanted to trample through an overgrown field and get lost and possibly eaten by either zeds or wild dogs because I get caught on fucking brambles!” He laughs, but this time it’s humorless.
“None of this is ideal, big guy,” Ricky says. “Come on, lock and load.”
We head up the path to the farmhouse, eyeing up every bush and tree for wild dogs and deaders, but thankfully everything seems pretty quiet. The farmhouse’s windows are all boarded up on both the top and bottom floors, and the front door seems to be barred from the inside, because when we push on it there’s no give whatsoever. I’d think that there was someone still alive inside apart from the fact that everything is so quiet and seems so undisturbed. I mean, really, how long could someone hole up for? A month? Two? It’s been years since the shit hit the fan; surely no one could have lain low for that amount of time.
Odium IV: The Dead Saga Page 8
