by Steve Kuhn
As we held off the dead on the street and boarded D-Prime, Kylee snapped at me, “We gotta wait for Cutty. Hold this position.”
Holding a still hysterical Lilly in my arms, I just shook my head and lifted her into the trailer. Kylee turned chalk white. She said, “I’ll go in after him then. We can’t just leave him.”
I shouted at her, “Do you think I would just fucking leave him? Do you really think I’d just retreat to save my own ass? He’s dead Kylee! Cutty is fuckin’ dead, and there ain’t shit you or anyone else can do about that!”
She stood like a stone statue as the others blasted away at the approaching horde.
I wish I could have broken the news to her properly, ya know? Sat her down and braced her for it or something…
There was just no time. There’s never enough time anymore. The clock is ticking for the entire world, and the bell tolls for each and every one of us.
We pulled back up the strip to the NGC aftermath and parked D-Prime across the road to block the way in case any of the dead wandered that way overnight. There we set up camp in the restaurant again and spent the night.
Don asked Boyd over a dinner of spaghetti we scavenged from the pantry, “I guess you and the other two guys are gonna try and make it work up on this end of the strip then?”
Boyd shrugged, passing some stale-ass bread to Seth, and answered, “M-my plans have ch-ch-changed.”
Lilly asked him coldly, “You think you’re gonna stay with us?”
Boyd smiled at her in an effort to show he wasn’t shaken. “No one can s-s-survive out there alone, L-Lilly.”
She frowned deeply. “No one survives with us either.”
Kylee chimed in with a motherly tone, saying, “Enough of that talk, Lilly. Eat your dinner.”
Lilly picked at her plate a bit and told no one in particular, “It hurts to eat, and my stitches are itchy.”
Nick dipped his head to look under her chin and told her, “Kylee’s right, kid. You gotta keep your strength up if you’re gonna get better. Just do the best you can.”
Lilly scowled at him and said angrily, “Don’t call me ‘kid.’ I hate when people call me ‘kid.’ I’m big now. I’m the same as you.”
Nick held out his hands to try and calm her down and told her, “Okay. Okay. I’m sorry. It’s just that everyone here cares about you. We worry about you. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
She changed the subject. “Cutty—He saved me.”
The room fell silent, and everyone stared at their food quietly.
Lilly continued, “He saved me, and he died. I wish I was dead…”
Kylee snapped again, “Lilly, I said that’s enough!”
Lilly’s face deteriorated into a grimace, and she started crying a soft and squeaky cry.
Don put a hand on Kylee’s arm to get her attention before gesturing for her to ease up a little bit.
I lost my temper—not at Lilly, not at Kylee. Shit, I don’t even know why I lost my temper. I just felt this fire in my belly start to burn. The more the conversation went on, the hotter it got. Then my arms tingled, and my legs got all twitchy. I stood up and threw my plate across the room, and it shattered into a thousand pieces, flinging food everywhere. All of them flinched at the crash and stared at me. I felt like I was on trial even though no one said a word.
“Everybody shut up! Just shut the fuck up about it!”
I went on a complete and utter spree of destruction. I whipped my arm across the table and wiped everyone’s food to the floor before flipping it completely. They all sat back in their seats, but didn’t move as I lost my shit on the room. I was blind with rage, punching holes in the drywall, kicking chairs—just total annihilation. My peripheral vision was blacked out, and I was in a tunnel of hatred and sorrow that in hindsight seems futile, but I didn’t care.
Next thing I knew, Seth was up on his feet. I shot him a look, almost daring him to try and stop me. I honestly think I could have taken anyone on at that point, even Cutty himself.
He just smirked at me—Seth’s signature smirk. It was a ‘fuck yeah’ kind of smirk. He gave me a slight nod to continue before he reached for his own chair and broke it into pieces by slamming it on the floor.
In seconds Don, too, was in on it. He picked up one of the other tables and tossed it like a toy into the soft-drink machine across the room, exploding both. Then Boyd high-fived Nick, and they both simultaneously dropkicked this huge, wooden Indian carving. It toppled over into a rack full of glasses with an enormous crash. It didn’t take long before every single one of us was tearing the place to shreds.
I don’t know how long it lasted. I lost myself in it. When we finished, though, we were all winded and panting heavily. We stood there in a semi-circle, looking from one person to the other. Kylee and Lilly stood there across from me. Lilly was still clutching the table leg she had been using to beat shit up. Both had tears streaming down their faces. That was when I noticed my face was soaking wet as well.
No words were needed. Lilly let the table leg fall to the floor and reached out for me. I picked her up without a moment’s hesitation and hugged her tightly; her stubbly, shaven head matching Kylee’s scratched my cheek a bit as she pressed into me and sobbed. Kylee joined us.
We were the ones that knew Cutty the best. The others simply looked on. When we were through, we sat on the floor together, all eight of us.
We woke up the next morning in the exact same positions. Seth and Nick were already checking gear and cleaning weapons. I nodded my thanks to Seth as he passed me my pistol and a cigarette. My gun was freshly oiled and fully loaded once again, but I cringed when I reached into my pocket for my Zippo. Seth held up a hand and lit my smoke for me. He asked me, “You holdin’ up all right?”
I shook my head and said, “No, but thanks for askin’.”
He shrugged as he went back to cleaning another rifle and told me, “Look, man… shit’s fucked up—all of it—but I think last night was a good thing. You gotta rage sometimes, let it out. I understand. If you need some time… Nick and I can handle the heavy lifting for a bit. We can hold our own… You’ll see.”
Boyd sat in the only surviving chair in front of the window, ever on watch. I saw him cock his head in our direction to listen, but he said nothing.
Nick agreed with Seth, adding, “I ain’t never been one for coddling and caring and sharing our feelings and all that bullshit, but this is different. And Seth’s right. We got you.”
I shook their hands and once again nodded my thanks before turning to ask Don and Chalmers, “What do you guys think?”
Kylee answered for them. “Nellis.”
Chalmers asked her, “Think we can pull it off?”
She glared with her good eye and answered him confidently, saying, “Don’t care. I’ll go alone if I have to.”
Don told her, “You won’t have to go alone. I’m in. And no… it’s not because I’m trying to ‘protect you’ or whatever. I go where you go from here on out. Got it?”
Chalmers added, “Same. We need to find out what’s going on out there—on the military and civilian end of things, that is.”
Kylee called over her shoulder to Boyd, “What about you?”
He never took his eyes off his scope. He simply raised his hand in the air and gave a thumbs-up.
Seth click-clacked the action on the rifle as he finished its cleaning and stood up, passing the weapon to Kylee. “We didn’t just shine this shit up for nothin’…”
Kylee smiled and said, “Good. Thank you.” Then she asked Lilly, “Ready, Lil?”
Lilly walked over to the pile of shit that Seth and Nick were working on and sifted through it briefly. She found her pistol and without a word began pressing some loose rounds into the magazine. She struggled, just barely, to press in the final bullet before slamming the magazine into place and clicking the release with her thumb…
Schick!
The round chambered as the slide shot forward. She carefully
pressed the safety on as JC had instructed her and placed the weapon into the oversized holster on her hip. “Now I’m ready.”
Off to Nellis…
Entry 143
Cutty was still weighing heavily on my mind. I dunno if I was moping around too much or if my short temper was pissing people off—probably both. Regardless, as soon as we took a piss break, Kylee approached me and pulled me off to the side of the street under the cover of an old sign for a one-on-one.
She stood there with her hand on her hip, eyeing me up as if she was looking for a chink in my virtual armor. “You gotta stop,” she finally said firmly.
I played dumb and simply asked her, “Stop what?”
She frowned at me disgustedly and answered with, “This attitude you’ve had since Cutty… you know…”
I don’t remember if I said anything specifically, but I do remember sighing heavily. I knew I was busted. She continued, “It’s affecting the others. We can’t be tiptoeing around you, walking on eggshells because you might flip shit. And that crap you pulled with Lilly this morning almost got you fucked up.”
Shit. I had nearly forgotten about that.
Lilly had been trying to work on her reading during our downtime, if that’s what you wanna call it, and everyone had been keen to help her out as she thumbed through the odd magazine lying around the trailer. Anyway, she came over to me this morning and plopped down with one. I ignored her—not because I felt like being a dick, mind you. I just didn’t wanna do anything at the time. I’d been replaying the scenes with Cutty, our escape, and the trashing of the restaurant over and over in my head. I was exhausted, both physically and mentally. I snapped at her when she asked me to help her. I remember saying, “Goddammit, Lilly! Not now! Take your little ass over to Chalmers or somethin’…” I could feel the eyes on me.
She frowned at me and teared up before walking away. She didn’t cry, though, nor did she say anything. I felt shitty about that, but I definitely didn’t need Kylee up my ass about it, either.
Kylee stayed on me, though, saying, “If you don’t fuckin’ snap out of it, and do it soon, this group is going to turn on you. Don’t think for a second that you can give up on them… on me… just because Cutty is gone.”
I stared at her. She was right.
She finished with, “Sack the fuck up, Dext. Be a man.” Then she spun on her heels and left with a huff. I felt ill over it.
We were just about to shove off, with only a few more miles between us and Nellis, when a strange voice called out, “Oi! Hands where we can see ’em, lads!”
No one bothered. In fact, Don already had his pistol drawn and had taken aim on the two men approaching us.
The street was devoid of life, save for the two men making contact with us. The midday sun sat high in the air, hot as hell, and the air was dry and stale. There were shops on either side of the road, but they had already been heavily looted. The glass was broken out of most of the windows, and the ground was littered with trash and the black-grey ash of long-dead fires.
A large, somewhat portly man with red hair and a giant, red beard glared down the barrel of his rifle at us. His buddy, a middle-aged man with the ragged clothes and the scraggly facial hair of a survivor, flanked him. He, too, had his sidearm pointed our way.
The big dude demanded again in a thick, Scottish accent, “I needa see yer hands, aye? Do it now.”
Unfortunately, my pistol was tucked into my belt, and drawing it now would surely get me shot. The others were also caught largely unaware. We complied, but Don kept his aim on the big man. Don told him, “Negative.”
The big man laughed boisterously. It was a loud and confident laugh, one that implied he wasn’t the least bit afraid. Lucky for us, we knew something he didn’t…
He told Don, “I cannie tell a lie, lad… I take no pleasure in killin’, but I’ll do what I must fer me kin. Now, be a good laddie and don’t be riskin’ yer hide. Even if ya manage ta put one in me, me mate here’ll surely cut ya down.”
Don gestured to the man’s companion, nodding towards the man’s chest, and said, “I wouldn’t count on that, pal.”
The red dot on the man’s chest wavered slightly as Boyd stood from his prone position atop D-Prime, ever on watch. His laser sight was trained on the man’s heart. I didn’t think it was possible, but old red beard’s face got even paler than it had already been.
He tried to laugh it off, lowering his weapon just a bit, and said, “Aye, aye… never can be too careful these days. Well played. Let’s start again, shall we? How about we all lower our guns and have a shake instead?”
There was a tense moment of silence as we all gave the offer some thought. It was Seth who finally spoke up and told the men, “Sure.”
He approached the man slowly, with his hand outstretched, and offered the man a handshake. Red beard lowered his weapon completely now and returned the gesture heartily. “Well met, me boy!”
He tilted his head at his friend as if to say ‘put it down,’ and the man shrugged as he holstered his pistol. Seth shook the other man’s hand and told them both, “We’re from Vegas. You?”
Red beard nodded and replied, “We’re local. Though, me accent belies the fact, I’m sure. We got a camp ta the north with about twenty or so—all good folk. We were tryin’ ta find some antibiotics. Bad case o’ the shits runnin’ through everyone. It’s causin’ a problem with dehydration and all that. You have anything yer willin’ ta trade?”
He craned his neck to peek into the trailer, and no doubt saw our stock. He shifted his eyes from the trailer to his friend, so Chalmers and I took a slight step right to shield the view inside.
Seth nodded in the affirmative, saying, “Yeah, yeah, man. We got you all day long.”
Kylee’s eyes boggled when she heard this, and I could tell her blood was about to boil. I could hear her now in my head, saying, “Just who the fuck does he think he is, negotiating with our shit?” or something to that effect.
Seth opened his arms wide and pointed to one of the shops on his left. He told red beard, “Let’s get off the street and figure out a deal. Don’t be needin’ to draw any more attention to ourselves out here in the middle of the road, right?”
Red beard nodded and smiled a pleasant, gap-toothed grin at Seth. The two men turned their backs to lead the way into the shop when both Seth and Nick suddenly drew their pistols.
Pop!
Pop!
Red beard and his companion collapsed face-first in a heap, blood seeping from neat entry wounds just behind their ears.
Lilly rushed in without a word and began casually looting their bodies. As she quietly emptied their pockets, she spread the contents in organized piles beside her.
Nick told Seth, “Fuckin’ took ya long enough, dude. I thought you were actually gonna trade.”
Seth winked at him and said coolly, “Oscar winnin’ performance right there, brother!”
Chalmers asked them both, “Whatcha do that for?”
Nick shrugged and told him, “Those two were full of shit. They were gonna kill us all as soon as they got the chance, provided they got what they needed.”
Chalmers looked incredulous. “You just murdered them? Just like that? You can’t know what they were gonna do, not for sure!”
Seth smirked and said, “Fuck outta here, man. I could see it in his eyes. It was us or them.”
Chalmers just shook his head.
Nick explained, “Seth’s right, though. I saw it, too. You don’t spend as much time as we did at the poker tables in Vegas without knowing how to spot a liar, even the good ones, and these two weren’t that good.”
Lilly popped up from her task and carried the stuff from the dead men to the trailer, where she climbed in and began putting it the proper places.
Don looked up at Boyd and told him, “Thanks for that, Boyd, regardless.”
Boyd waved him off like it was no big deal.
Don told us that he wanted to go over some tactical stu
ff during the last few miles to Nellis. He’s more than qualified, so I’m looking forward to hearing what he has to say.
I’ll also apologize to Lilly. I’m such a dick.
Entry 144
Don was preparing his lesson plan before we were to begin the meeting. He and Kylee could be seen whispering in hushed tones behind the trailer. I guess they were comparing notes or whatever. They smiled at one another from time to time as they mimed attacks and defenses, switching off with one another to act as bernies and shit. They were super focused, so I didn’t mess with them. Chalmers kept his ears pointed their way while avoiding Seth and Nick. I think he was still a little pissed over the shooting earlier this morning.
Nick and Seth spent their time doing what Nick and Seth do. They busted each other’s balls like Cutty and Junior used to do. They crack me up, man. It’s like they’re always trying to find the most disgusting things to call each other. Nick currently holds my personal favorite with “dildo-nosed cockmaster,” and Seth is running a close second with “ball-tasting rhino-twat.” Try explaining what a dildo is to a curious child.
I opted to distract Lilly by ignoring her question and, instead, offering her that apology. I told her that I was just out of it this morning when I shooed her away, that I didn’t mean to hurt her feelings.
She waved to Boyd on top of D-Prime, and he smiled at her, ever on watch. Then she asked me, “Bad dreams, huh?”
It was weird that she knew that. I did, in fact, have a bad dream the night before—a couple of them actually; though, they all sort of ran together. I asked her how she knew, and she told me, “I seen you floppin’ around in your sleep. I don’t sleep much either. What was it about?”
I hesitated. Truth is I didn’t really wanna talk about it. It had nothing to do with the fact that it was Lilly, but more just that I didn’t even have it all sorted in my own head. She pressed me, though. I swear she learned that shit from Kylee. It’s like, as soon as I start thinking quietly about something, she’s on me to spit it out verbally. Lilly’s better at it, though, because she smiles cutely and almost sings the words, “Come on… you know you wanna…” We all know how Kylee would do it—hand on her hip, ass jutted out to one side, head cocked slightly like, ‘Hurry up, asshole. Time is money.’
