“He’s funny,” Julie said of Mickey when he was out of ear shot.
“He’s got his moments,” agreed Gwen.
An owl hooted in the woods.
Buddy cocked one eye towards the darkness and his rocking slowed. The thumb on the lighter froze.
“Ho, friends.” The strangers stepped from the night and a site they were. There were three of them—a woman and two men. They were clothed in rags and furs and pieces of coats and clothes stitched together. Their hair had grown out and hung from their heads in clumps. They looked weather-beaten and worn around the edges, grimy and feral. As they stepped into the light Julie and Gwen could see one of the two men was missing most of his hand. In his other he toted a red cooler.
The taller of the two men had spoken. Cadaverous, his eyes looked enormous in his head. His shrunken cheeks and prominent chin were covered with bristly hair, much in need of a shave. He had a rifle of some sort slung over his back, barrel down. His skin was leathery and his eyes were hard. He was older than the others, much older.
Gwen instinctively reached for the M16A4.
“I said greetings friends.” The taller man’s voice was gruff, almost hoarse. “Won’t be no need for that.” He indicated the assault rifle. “Will there?”
Gwen wasn’t sure what to do. The tall man had a rifle but it hadn’t left his back. They had announced themselves. If they’d meant herself or Julie or Buddy harm… Gwen made a decision and leaned back, away from the sixteen.
“That’s better now.” The tall man nodded. “Put Emily here at ease.”
Buddy hadn’t moved from where he sat, rocking slowly, and though Julie and Gwen hadn’t noticed it, he was no longer mumbling to himself. His thumb had started moving back and forth again, polishing the side of the lighter.
“Would you ladies mind if we joined you, warmed our weary bones by your fire? It’s a cold night, and it’s been a long day.”
Before either could answer the tall man motioned with his hand. The one-handed man sat down across from Gwen and Julie, on the other side of the fire, on Buddy’s right. The woman sat on his left and the tall man settled down next to her, uncomfortably close to Julie. Gwen shifted her weight towards Julie and only after she had done so did she realize she’d moved that much further from her weapon. She silently cursed herself.
“Much obliged, ma’am,” the tall man addressed Gwen, letting her know he’d noted her movement, completely ignoring Julie. It was like he wasn’t even taking Buddy’s presence into consideration.
“Well, I guess, you’re welcome,” she said, stumbling over her words, detesting herself for it, for any show of weakness. “You’ll have to forgive me. It’s been awhile since we’ve seen any other people.”
“Where you all coming from?” the other man inquired. He was just as gaunt as the tall man but looked frailer, weaker. He looked like an overgrown baby bird, a fledgling. Both Julie and Gwen noted the way the tall man looked at him when he spoke.
When Gwen turned her attention back to the tall man and the woman, Julie found herself staring at the second man’s disfigured hand. It looked like it had been cut in half two inches above the finger line. He still had a thumb, but beneath that was a wad of dirty, reddish bandages. She had to purposefully take her focus off the man. In doing so she looked at his feet, which were encased in torn boots wrapped with duct tape.
“Now L.A.,” the taller man said. “You know it’s impolite to interrupt a conversation, and me and the ladies here, we were having ourselves a conversation.”
The other man looked down at his ratty boots. Julie noted that the tall man wore the best footwear and the woman and the one-handed man named L.A. wore what looked like cobbler’s scraps.
“Indeed, where are you ladies, and your gentleman friend there,” the tall, grizzled man chin nodded to Buddy, “coming from?”
“The city,” Julie said and the man licked his upper teeth before speaking.
“Is that a fact? You hear that, Emily? These three travelers, obviously much wearied and fatigued like ourselves, have escaped from that great whore of Babylon.”
Oh Christ, thought Gwen, religious fanatics.
“Oh Christ,” said the tall man, nailing Gwen with his stare. “I bet you just thought to yourself that you’re sharing your fire with a bunch of religious fanatics. Didn’t you?”
“No,” Gwen lied. “I was just thinking it’s nice to have the company of some other…some other people.”
“Some other people,” the tall man said. “You hesitated when you said that. Well, despite appearances, especially L.A. Munroe’s here…” The tall man snickered but L.A. continued to look down. “The road will do that to you. It wears away at you. Your friend over there. He looks like he knows what I’m talking about. Don’t he, L.A.?”
“Yeah, John.” L.A. kept looking at the ground. “Yeah.”
The man who went by the name of John reached into a grimy bag he wore on one shoulder and retrieved a faded green bottle. Something like Julie’s grandmother would have kept olive oil in back in their kitchen.
“Don’t think I didn’t notice you spying my bag there, pretty lady,” John said to Julie. “This here’s a five thousand dollar designer bag. Was. Ain’t worth much now though.”
He uncorked the bottle and drank from it. He growled as the contents went down. “Well, if that don’t keep the cold off you on a night like this,” he looked at Gwen, “I don’t know what will.”
“John Book,” a voice called from the dark.
“Well, look here, we got more guests,” John said.
Gwen and Julie looked up as Mickey came walking out of the dark, a worried look on his face, dried tree limbs stacked in his arms. Behind him marched another man—this one also tall and dirty looking, wearing a cape of furs stitched together. The man behind Mickey had a shotgun in both hands, and it did not reassure Gwen that the barrel was pointed down and off to the side.
“Mister Marcus. How good of you to join us,” John said. “And look, you’ve brought company. Well, how lucky for us, we exhausted pilgrims, that we found these nice folks out here in the middle of,” John looked around, “well, the middle of nowhere.” He laughed.
“Lucky for us,” said the man John had called Mister Marcus, and when he said it Gwen noticed he was missing a few of his upper teeth. She wanted to look at Julie but didn’t. Instead she looked across the fire at Buddy. If he had any idea of what was going on he gave no indication. Mister Marcus’s shotgun had a red sleeve of shells hugging the butt.
She realized they were in deep trouble.
“Sit down,” Mister Marcus said. “Right there.”
Mickey settled down, kneeling, piling the wood next to him, beside L.A. Munroe and his cooler. His USAS-12 shotgun was still barrel up, but it was between John and the quiet woman and might have well been half way across the world. Mister Marcus settled down next to him and the circle was complete.
Gwen could smell this man, Mister Marcus, and the smell wasn’t good.
“Son,” John spoke at Mickey. “You planning on praying or something? Settle back, why don’t you?”
It wasn’t a question, and he sat down in the snow. He thought he remembered a porn star named Mister Marcus, but that guy had been black. This guy was white and filthy.
“Have you a drink.” John tossed the bottle to Mickey and it landed in the melting snow next to him.
“Well, thanks.” He uncorked the bottle.
“Might not want to thank him ‘till after you drink that,” Mister Marcus said, a smile of anticipation on his ugly face.
Mickey gasped when he swallowed the liquor inside the bottle. “What-what-what the heck is this stuff?”
“What’s it taste like?”
“Brake fluid!”
“That stuff’ll make your chest look like one of them chia-pets,” Mister Marcus promised.
“Well,” John said. “How good it is to have some proper company, some civilized company, to while away the evening
. The Lord works in mysterious ways, don’t he Emma?”
The woman said nothing. She had a glazed, far off look in her eyes.
Against his better judgment, Mickey took another drink from the bottle.
Gwen felt like she had to say something to assert her…her what? Her whatever. “Emma? I thought your name was Emily?”
“We call her whatever we want to on any given day,” the woman did not answer, “don’t we Mister Marcus?”
“We sure do.”
“What are some of our pet names for Edith there?”
“Well, I was always partial to whore, or slut, or cum-queen.”
John laughed and Mister Marcus laughed but L.A. didn’t. The woman just sat there.
“You’ll have to forgive our, our blue sense of humor.” John wiped a tear from his eye. “This road. Been awhile since we’ve seen any, any living people that is. Pass that bottle back over here, son.” He took another swig. “Our humor may not be politically correct, but it helps us get through the day. Ain’t that so, L.A.?”
“Yeah, John.”
“Didn’t catch that. What was that, L.A.?”
“Yeah, John. I said yeah.”
“L.A..” John shook his head. “He’s a bit more serious than me and Mister Marcus here, or Emma for that matter. Ain’t that so? Young man’s seen more than any young man should ever have seen. He helps keep us grounded, keeps us on the straight and narrow so to speak. You comprehend my meaning?”
Julie did not like their situation one bit. She had the .357 holstered under her jacket, out of sight, next to her protruding belly. The .380 was at her lower back and she couldn’t get to it with her coat on. Where the hell was Bear?
“Yeah, we understand,” Gwen said.
“Oh, she knows we’re just messin’ with her, don’t ya’ hon?” He reached over and squeezed the woman’s flat breast through her layers of clothes and rags, which made Mister Marcus laugh again.
“You two married?” Mickey said.
He turned his head slowly to look at him. “We’re all married in the eyes of God, son. You’re familiar, perhaps, with the concept of the family of man?” He passed the bottle around the circle, back to Mickey.
“Uh, somewhat,” Mickey muttered, then changed tactics. “What you guys got in the cooler?”
John laughed and so did Mister Marcus.
“What’s so funny?” Mickey asked, steeling himself, gulping down a mouthful of the liquid.
“Nothing. Nothing son.” John composed himself. “And it’s good of you to point that out. L.A., don’t be stingy. Crack that cooler and let’s break bread with our new friends. And look at you there, hogging that bottle.”
Mickey handed the bottle to Mister Marcus and the other man uncorked it and drank. He watched the man with one hand open the cooler. There was snow packed inside.
L.A. reached into the snow with his one good hand and removed a few Tupperware containers. He cracked one open and there was meat inside.
“Oh man, you’ve got meat.” Mickey started babbling in part because he was nervous and the liquor was working on him. “We haven’t had meat in…cans, always cans. Canned peas, canned corn, canned cream corn. You ever try and eat cream corn out of the can without a spoon?” he asked Mister Marcus.
“No, can’t say I ever did.” Mister Marcus had a bemused look on his hard face.
“Mickey,” Gwen said, but the other did not look at her.
“My friends tell you we’re coming out of the city? Well, it’s bad down there. Millions of zombies, millions of them. We were holed up in Eden—it’s got walls, there were a bunch of us, and every day—”
“Did you say Eden?” John asked.
“Yeah, Eden. We called it Eden.”
“Well, why’d you call it Eden?”
“Eden? I don’t know, it—”
“When we got there,” Julie said. “They were calling it Eden. The people who were already there—”
“Pretty lady, pretty lady.” John clicked his tongue in his mouth several times. “If I correct L.A. Munroe for interrupting my conversation with you and the other pretty lady there, but I don’t correct you when you interrupt my conversation with this man, well, that might be seen by some as unfair. Couldn’t it, Mister Marcus?”
“Sure could.”
“So…ain’t she a pretty one though, Mister Marcus?”
“Sure is.” The other man drank from the bottle.
“Pass that bottle back this way, Mister Marcus. Now, L.A., tight ain’t right. Share our bounty with these strangers.”
When L.A. hesitated Mister Marcus reached over Mickey and grabbed two of the tupperwares. He dropped one in Mickey’s lap and opened the other, scooping up some meat in his dirty fingers and shoving it in his mouth.
Mickey pried the lid from his container and stared at the meat. Roast beef, hamburger, London Broil, pot roast, prime rib, flank steak…it had been so long since…
“Mickey.” If he heard Gwen he ignored her as he mimicked Mister Marcus and followed suit, shoving a glob of meat into his mouth.
“L.A.?” there was a question on John’s face.
L.A. stood and walked around the woman named Emma or Emily and presented another Tupperware container to the man named John. Then he returned to his seat.
Julie watched John open his container and start to eat. She noticed how neither John nor Mister Marcus, or Mickey for that matter, offered herself or Gwen or the other woman any meat. John drank from the bottle as he ate.
“Your friend there looks like he’s in a bad way,” Mister Marcus said between mouthfuls, indicating Buddy.
“Yeah, he’s been better,” Mickey said. “What did you say this was again?”
“Zebra,” Mister Marcus said and he and John immediately started laughing.
This John guy reminded Mickey of someone, someone famous, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.
“Zebra, huh? Tastes like chicken.”
This caused John and Mister Marcus to laugh even harder. When they had finally stopped laughing John asked Mickey, “You guys keep it up, put me in a good mood, I might grace you with a song tonight.”
The woman named Emma or Emily or whatever clapped several times then went still once more.
John looked at Julie in a conspiratorial manner and winked at her. “Emma here likes it when I sing. So, you pilgrims used to live in a place called Eden, eh?”
“Sure did.” Ravenous, he continued to stuff his face.
“And you chose to leave? Or were you thrown out?”
“It’s complicated.”
“So you were thrown out.”
“No. That’s not what happened,” He noticed neither Gwen nor Julie were eating. “Hey, you guys want some?”
“Yeah.” John turned his attention to Julie and Gwen. “You ladies want some zebra-meat?”
Mister Marcus laughed.
Someone from the movies, thought Mickey, that’s who this John reminded him of. Maybe the old man from Phantasm? Nah…
“No, no thank you,” Gwen said. “What about her?” She meant the woman who travelled with the strangers.
“She’ll eat later,” Mister Marcus said.
Lance Henrikson, thought Mickey. That’s it. And this whole scene, like something out of a movie with Henrickson…Aliens? No. Pumpkinhead? No…
“What about you?” Mister Marcus asked Julie. “Ain’t you hungry?”
“No, I already ate.”
“You know, pretty lady,” John said. “In some circles it’d be considered downright rude to refuse to break bread with a man.”
“Look, I’m not trying to be rude. It’s just that, I mean, you guys didn’t even cook that meat. I don’t know how long it’s been in that cooler or when…”
Crusade (Eden Book 2) Page 13
