by TW Brown
“They come and check every couple of hours to see if you are dead or conscious…not sure which,” Matt said with a half-hearted chuckle.
“So, about this Bryce person,” Kevin probed.
“Imagine a hockey goon crossed with one of those fellas from Deliverance,” Matt said. “He’s a big guy and sometimes I think he is really smart…then he does stuff like what he did to you.”
“And this has what exactly to do with the major not letting her soldiers rape at will?” Kevin asked.
“He has a thing for Aleah,” Erin sing-songed like she was on a grade school playground.
“Knock it off, Erin,” Heather snapped. “Or have you forgotten about how Aleah is the reason that you survived that fire.”
“I was only kidding—” the girl started to defend herself.
“Enough!” Kevin snapped and immediately regretted it as light bloomed behind his eyes and the dull pain in his head became sharp. “Can you really be acting like this after everything?”
“What?” Heather asked, looking confused. “We aren’t doing anything different.”
“My point exactly,” Kevin said in a voice barely above a whisper. “We are being held captive by a renegade military faction. Valarie and Shari are locked up…and you guys are acting like this is just a regular day.”
“They said they wouldn’t kill us if we agreed to join them,” Erin said. “We get meals, and it’s not like Shaw and The Basket. Major Beers won’t let nobody rape us. We just have to work during the day, and do stuff like we were doing before you disappeared for so long.”
“We thought you were dead,” Aleah added.
“The choices were pretty limited,” Matt chimed in. “It isn’t like we have hurt anybody or had to do anything skeezy.”
“That’s because you guys have stayed here behind the wall,” Kevin said. “Meanwhile, she had that James guy killed and staged a mock hanging of Valarie to lure me out. These people are no better than Shaw and his men. In fact…I’d say they might be worse. They are showing up like the US Army and when folks open their gates, they take what they want and toss any who they don’t deem useful over the fence or wall or whatever.”
“Then why haven’t they tossed…” Matt began, but shut his mouth with an audible click. Kevin couldn’t tell if the name he was about to mention was Erin’s or Valarie’s, and at the moment he didn’t care.
“You all need to listen up,” Kevin hissed. “The only way that we will survive is if we stick together. If we lose one, we become weaker.”
“Then why do you seem so set against joining these people?” Matt asked.
Kevin looked at the young man closely. He hadn’t really gotten to know him over the few weeks that he’d been part of the group. Most of the time, Matt was off with Heather. He didn’t want to become suspicious of him this easily, but he had been too pre-conditioned by all the books and movies. There was always one guy who turned out to be something other than what he tried to pass himself off as to the others. He would keep his eyes on Matt and do his best to not let his Hollywood-induced paranoia taint his perception. Still…all movie stereotypes had some basis in truth. Right?
“Because I’ve been out there and seen what they have done…I have been traveling with somebody who knows the major personally.”
“And where is that person now?” Matt challenged—at least that’s how Kevin took it.
“I have no idea,” Kevin said with a shrug. “We got separated a few days ago.” At least he was giving up some truth. He tried to stuff them down, but the feelings of suspicion regarding Matt began to rise and spread its wings in the back of his mind.
“Who was this person?” Aleah asked. “And how did you get split up?”
“Her name was Willa, and we got split up shortly after the staged hanging of Valarie.” Now Kevin was watching Aleah. If anybody deserved his suspicion, it was her. A solitary woman who looked like her just happened to stay alive on her own all this time. She “stumbled” across them in the middle of nowhere. And the real eyebrow raiser was her interest in him. Geek chic was one thing…but he was a lot of the former…and almost none of the latter.
“You have been out there with a woman?” Erin piped up.
“It wasn’t like that,” Kevin defended. He was now the focus of three sets of eyes. The trio all looked at him with something different in their expression: Matt—interest; Aleah—concern or curiosity (he couldn’t decide which); Erin—glee? He was growing confused. In fact, the more he thought about it, the more he almost wished he was still out there fighting the cold and zombies with Willa.
“What was it like?” Aleah crossed her arms under what Kevin considered to be the most perfect breasts in the world. A tiny voice in the back of his mind told him he might want to lock onto the memory, because he was probably never going to see them in person again.
“She is part of an army detachment that has been chasing Major Beers and her band of crazies all across the state of Ohio. She is also her sister-in-law.”
“So she wouldn’t have any sort of ax to grind,” Matt said with a chuckle.
“What’s your problem?” Kevin snapped.
Everything about Matt changed in an instant. His smirk became a look of concern, and whatever he was about to say died on his lips.
Heather stepped beside him and took his hand. “Kevin?” she asked with obvious concern. “I don’t think Matt was saying anything. I think it was simply the fact that with everything that has happened, and especially after discovering Paul James was working as a spy, we can’t trust anybody.”
“So much has happened since you left,” Aleah said as she stepped in front of Kevin and effectively blocked his view of Matt. “And we had to start trying to figure out what to do with you gone.”
“But I wasn’t gone that long,” Kevin protested.
“These days, a week is an eternity,” Heather said. “None of our runs have taken longer than three days, and when you were gone almost two weeks, we had to start considering the fact that you wouldn’t return.”
Kevin listened. Had it really been that long? He tried to count the days, but they all sort of ran together. He knew that the initial trip out to Newark with Peter had been fast, but then things got jumbled.
“When these people rolled in, Matt was almost killed trying to stop them,” Heather continued. “And when the major rounded us all up, she promised that none of us would be harmed if we agreed to take part in the work. In fact, Matt was supposed to start working with the soldiers and start going out on scouting missions eventually. None of us were forced to work with the whores, and the major even protected Aleah and Shari early on when a few of the soldiers started getting a bit grabby.”
“What about Valarie?” Kevin said in an even whisper that did very little to hide his anger.
“That’s the other thing,” Matt spoke up despite the warning looks he received from both Aleah and Heather. “I know you have some sort of soft spot for her, but she has been a danger to herself and all of us. She screams at things that aren’t there, she is filthy…you saw her.”
“Yet Shari of all people has taken it upon herself to care for the girl?” Kevin shot back.
“She almost killed us all when she caught the country club on fire—” Matt continued.
“What?” Kevin exploded. “Why would you say that?”
“Everybody knows it,” Matt replied, not backing down from Kevin despite Heather’s hands on his chest. “That lunatic kept screaming about fire being the only way, and then…whoosh! Middle of the night, we all have to jump through windows or whatever to escape as the building burns to the ground.”
Kevin placed his hands gently on Aleah’s that were—like Heather’s—squarely set in the middle of his chest in a gentle effort to keep Kevin and Matt apart and pushed them aside. He leaned in close to Matt’s face and smiled.
“Who told you that Valarie started that fire?”
“Nobody directly,” Matt said with a scowl. �
�But everybody was talking about it. In fact, that major you have such a thing against, it was her that kept Valarie from being thrown over the wall. There were even a few fights and three soldiers ended up being sent to isolation for a few days because they got so mad when the major wouldn’t just deal with the problem.”
“I set that fire,” Kevin said with almost no emotion in his voice. “It was part of mine and Willa’s plan to flush the soldiers out.”
“You set a building on fire knowing that we were in it?” Erin stepped into the middle. Whether it was the fact that she had gotten tired of being ignored, or really had something to say was unclear.
“The plan was to force the major out into the open,” Kevin said.
“And then what?” Matt laughed. “What were the two of you going to do against a military unit?”
Kevin opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He had turned everything over to Willa at that point. Sure, they had argued, but she was so set and certain that this plan would flush out the major. He hadn’t thought to ask what they would do next. He had simply accepted that she had a plan. He was so determined not to fail Valarie that he had agreed. Had his judgment been too clouded? Had she taken advantage of that fact?
“We hadn’t gotten to all the details yet,” Kevin admitted sheepishly.
“But you had enough of a plan to set the building that we were in on fire?” Aleah asked.
“Look, I wasn’t totally on board with everything that she planned, but I was getting desperate. It wasn’t easy for me to be out here not knowing what was going on,” Kevin protested. “I couldn’t keep my mind straight. All I could imagine was the kind of stuff Shaw and his men did. I couldn’t let that happen to you.” He looked Aleah in the eyes. “I could not allow myself to just walk away…or to do nothing.”
“You could have killed us all,” Matt insisted.
“I could have left you in the middle of the road,” Kevin snapped. “But since neither of those things happened, maybe you should shut your mouth and start deciding what side you want to be on.”
“Kevin,” Heather put her hand on Kevin’s, “nobody is blaming you for anything…and nobody is changing sides, or whatever you think is happening. I think we are all just trying to figure out what is going to happen. To be honest, we all thought that you might be dead. This is really the first time we have all been allowed to be together. They’ve kept us apart since they took over.”
“I understand that you had to make some tough choices out there,” Aleah added. “And none of us think that you would do anything to intentionally hurt any of us. It’s just that you were working with somebody that we don’t know. And now, just like you have your concerns about the major and her band, we are trying to wrap our minds around this Willa person and wondering if there is a lesser of two evils.”
Matt and Erin were nodding as she spoke. Something on Matt’s face changed and he stepped around Heather to address Kevin. “Man, I’m not going to ever forget what you did that day you guys found me. I didn’t mean to come across like a jerk. It’s just that things have been tense. I feel like I let everybody down when we got overrun. You’ve always been the man with the plan, and I have no doubt that you will figure something out here. I shouldn’t have gotten in your face like I did.”
The two men shook hands. But Erin was not ready to let things be. “I still don’t understand how you could just set our only form of shelter on fire. I—”
“Enough!” Heather snapped.
“So it is okay with everybody that we were all starting to agree with the soldiers about them putting Valarie over the wall when we thought that she burned the place down, but since it was Kevin—”
“I said enough!” Heather spun on the younger girl. “And not all of us were okay with putting Valarie over the wall.”
“Then why is it that my sister is the only person who has stepped in to take care of her?”
“I imagine it was because she was sick and tired of taking care of you,” Heather replied. “You don’t lift a finger to help anybody but yourself…you didn’t before the soldiers took over, and you have done everything possible to avoid working since they came.”
Erin’s face turned red and she sputtered over words that seemed to all arrive at the same time on her lips.
“Don’t think we haven’t heard,” Matt added as he stepped up beside Heather.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Erin blurted.
“You don’t think the soldiers talk?” Matt raised an eyebrow.
“They…I…” Erin stumbled and stammered as she backed away.
“What am I missing?” Kevin asked with genuine confusion.
“Erin has been…performing favors…for some of the men in exchange for them doing her work,” Heather said, her eyes never leaving the younger girl’s.
“You mean—” Kevin glanced at Erin.
“Most of the soldiers don’t actually know her real name…they just call her Bee-Jay,” Heather said with a smirk. “It seems that she provides her…services…to anybody willing to take care of her kitchen shift.”
“Does Shari know?” Kevin asked the young girl who was now glaring daggers at Heather.
“She spends all her time with that retarded girl!” Erin snapped. “She hasn’t hardly spoken to me for…” Her voice faded and her words trailed off.
“Since you let your baby die?” Heather prompted.
In a surprising flash, Erin’s fist lashed out, catching Heather on the nose with an audible crunch. There was a snarl of anger and then the younger girl tackled the older one, sending them both to the floor in a heap.
Kevin and Matt waded in to pull the two apart—Matt ending up with Erin and Kevin with Heather. The tent flap opened and a soldier stuck his head inside. He only seemed to take a casual glance before ducking back out.
“You two need to knock it off,” Kevin hissed. Heather went to pull away and he jerked her back hard. “I mean it. If we are going to survive, we will all need each other before this is done and over.”
“It won’t ever be over!” Erin spat. “Those dead things aren’t ever going to go away. Nothing is ever going to be like it was!”
“No,” Kevin agreed, “it’s not. And I won’t lie to you and say otherwise. However, we are still very much alive, and I intend to do everything in my power to keep us that way. What I won’t do is victimize others in the process. I can’t accept this major and her people as anything more than raiders and bad guys. They rolled in and took our place. And I’m not asking you to trust Willa and her group either. However, if it weren’t for her…I might very well be dead. She actually left her group to come find me, and then helped me get back here.”
“She sounds pretty amazing,” Aleah whispered.
“And she also knows that I have an unwavering crush on a beautiful woman.” Kevin wasn’t sure, but he thought he detected something weird coming from Aleah. Having never really had a serous girlfriend—much less one that would display anything remotely resembling jealousy—he was on some uncharted ground.
“So what is it that you would have us do?” Matt asked, still keeping a grip on Erin; tightening it any time she struggled to get free.
11
Vignettes XXVIII
Aaheru gazed out at the sea. The surface was as smooth as glass; a delicate veil of mist swirled across the water in spots. The sun was still below the horizon, but its orange glow already gave the sky a lovely tinge of blood red that could easily be seen as an omen for what lay ahead.
“Pharaoh?” a soft voice spoke from behind him.
“Yes, Ahmes?”
“I have news.”
Aaheru turned to face the girl. Her dark caramel skin was made even more radiant by the light of the breaking dawn. She stared at the ground, waiting for his acknowledgement. Her beauty made him pleased with his decision to do away with those cursed burqas. Women were truly a gift from God to be enjoyed by all the senses.
“Then do not have me wait,
Child of the Moon.”
“Your seed is strong and I am with child.” Ahmes glanced up, her dark eyes betraying her. The pride was etched clearly on her face.
“Are you certain?”
“I have not had any tests by a doctor…but a woman knows her body.”
Woman, Aaheru tried to conceal his smile at her use of that word. By most standards, Ahmes was still a girl. When he’d first laid eyes on her, he’d imagined her to at least be sixteen. The night in his bed that she revealed herself to be a mere thirteen, he’d almost sent her away…almost.
Who could fault him? The girl was a true Egyptian beauty. Besides, the ideals of the Old World had considered her of a suitable age after her first bleeding. Those ideals were being revived as he assumed the title of pharaoh. If they were to give rise to a New Egypt, then they would have to bring children into the world in abundance.
“Are you pleased, my Pharaoh?” Ahmes whispered, a tinge of uncertainty clouding her eyes and forcing the glow of pride to hide like a sun behind scudding clouds.
“I am, my beautiful child,” Aaheru said, scooping her up in his arms. When he brought her up to his lips for an embrace, he only briefly considered the difference in their size as he felt her feet brush his knees.
Eventually he set her on the deck and they stood in silence as the sun lit up the sky. Despite its radiance, there was still a chill in the air and Ahmes shivered slightly against Aaheru.
“So, where are we going?” Ahmes finally broke the perfect stillness, her voice barely audible above the deep—more felt than heard—resonance of the ship’s engines.
“Off the shores of Greece there are hundreds if not thousands of islands. My vision is that we will claim one and make it our home. Over time, we will grow in strength and claim them one by one as ours. Eventually, we will be ready to claim the mainland.”
“So do you aspire to be Pharaoh or Caesar?” the girl said with a tinge of laughter.
“You surprise me yet again, Ahmes,” Aaheru said, turning the girl to face him.
“My name has more meaning than the one you chose,” she said with that pride returning to blaze in her eyes. “It was also the name of a famous scribe.”
