by Chris Lowry
“First light. I'll take the bike and go out with the raiders.”
“Is she going?” Byron looked at Anna in the office doorway.
The small room had been given to us. I told them I didn't need it, that we were off wartime footing and the warlord could sleep out here with everyone else.
“No one wants to see your back,” Brian had told me. “Hamburger meat.”
Maybe not quite that bad, but I still scared some of the kids. Some of the adults too. No one had said much to me since I hit Harriet on the bus.
Just Brian and Byron. Tyler and Anna.
The rest avoided me. Stopped talking when I walked past. Like they were afraid of how I would react. Or just afraid.
“She's going to stay,” I said of Anna. “Keep her safe.”
“Eyes and ears?” Brian asked.
“I can move faster alone.”
“You've been waiting for this.”
I shrugged.
“We were making good time, steady time until circumstances dictated we slow down.”
“That's what you're calling them? Circumstances.”
“I could call them megalomaniacs, and demented militiamen, hillbilly armies and zombies, but you know, circumstances.”
“Watch out for circumstances on the road,” Brian held out his hand. I shook it then Byron's.
“I'll be back as fast as I can. Don't shoot me coming up the hill.”
“I can't make any promises,” Bryon smirked. “My boys are pretty quick on the draw.”
I knocked him on the shoulder and went to join Anna. She closed the door and shut out the rest of the room.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“This is our last night,” she stood in the corner next to a potbellied Franklin stove pilfered from a house. A small blaze flickered in the grate bathing the room in orange and yellow light that danced around the shadows.
“I'll be back,” I told her.
I didn't use an Arnold accent though because the mood felt too serious for that kind of joke.
I'm glad I didn't because she reached down, unbuttoned her pants and slid out of them. She shed her jacket and shirt, the clothes piled on top of a borrowed rug next to a stolen pillowtop mattress.
I tried to pull my racing pulse under control as she took a step toward me, then another and began to help me undress.
She was a vision of smooth pale skin, lean lines of muscles showing as she flexed, the light playing across her face as she stared up at me and smiled. I wanted to reach out and close her eyes before she saw me, before I could see her turn away in revulsion.
But she didn't.
My clothes joined hers and she began to trace the scars and bruises that made a map across my torso. My skin wasn't smooth or alabaster. It was purpled and blue, green and yellow in some spots. There were ugly red lines that created little maps of the bad places we had been, the tight jams we had barely escaped.
She had nursed me back from each one.
I let her lead me to the bed and push me back on it as she straddled my legs. Then our eyes locked again and she started crying.
I'm not going to confess I've been with crying women before, but they usually wait until after we make sweet sweet love and the shame of one more one night stand washes over them.
I did have a woman start crying in the middle of dinner once on a blind date, but that totally wasn't my fault. She was a widow, I was the first guy she went out with six months after his death, and she thought I was sweet. I consoled her over the tortilla chips, we drank our way through two pitchers of margaritas and went out a couple of times after that before it fizzled.
I was in my rediscover who I am phase, which did not bode well for women who dated me after my second divorce. I was in no mood to settle down. Funny, because I was thinking about settling down with Anna.
Quiet cabin in the woods for her and my kids. Garden out back. Fish pond, and deer hunting for meat. Giant double fence to keep the Z out.
Except she was crying as we were about to do the deed.
Not after.
Not during.
But before.
I knew she was disgusted with me, disgusted with herself for thinking she had to do this with a killer, a monster. She took one look at my body and instead of throwing up, started throwing out sobs.
“It's okay,” I told her. “We don't have to do this.”
It wasn't the first lie I'd told her, but it was the one I remembered. She could feel how much I wanted to do this pressing against her leg. She could hear my heart beating in my chest, probably see it thudding against my skin.
“I want to tell you about before,” she sniffed.
We didn't talk about before. Not for either of us.
“I'm broken,” her voice hitched as she said it.
I ran my hand down her spine searching for a wound. What was broke?
She leaned forward and rested her head in my neck. I could feel warm tears drip from her nose onto my chest.
“When this happened, I was scared.”
This? With me? It hadn't happened yet, but who could blame her for being scared. I had seen the way everyone looked at me. She thought I was a monster too.
“The zombies took my friends, my family,” she went on.
Oh. Zombie this, not in bed this. Okay.
“I was alone. I didn't have anyone. So I ended up with a group of guys. Three of them,” she stuttered through it. “They said if I wanted to stay safe, I had to sleep with them. All of them.”
She shuddered, her thin shoulders racked with hitching breaths. I stroked her spine, her back, using the tips of my fingers like she did on me. I ran my rough hands across her hair, petting her.
“They joined up with that cult,” she said. “Then they all used me. All of them, even the preacher. Every night it was one of them, or two. I begged them to stop, I pleaded...but they wouldn't. It was the price for me to stay.”
She couldn't talk then, just cried. Tears ran down her face and soaked me, snot leaked from her nose and she wiped it with the back of her hand.
That's why she was broken.
Not me.
Not anything I'd done.
I let her cry and purge it out. I held her while she did, and let my mind run through a lot of thoughts. I could tell her about my failings as a father. But that wouldn't make us even.
When she was done and the hiccupping tears had dried up, I lifted her face to look into mine.
“That was before,” I told her. “Before I killed the preacher, before the church where I killed the rest. You've seen what I've done since then. If you're broken, then what am I?”
She started to shake her head, and I stopped her.
“You asked me about before and I told you I didn't want to talk about it. Before all of this, I was a good man. I followed the ten commandments. I was a nice guy.”
“You still are,” she began.
I put a finger on her lips.
“No. I'm not. I have moments. But I am not a good man anymore. I am who I need to be now. Before doesn't matter to me. Who I was. What I did. All that matters to me is who I have to be. To survive.”
I think it was the most I'd ever said to her. She stared at me with big moist eyes
“I want to do this,” she said and reached a hand down to remind me of what I'd lost in all the tears. So we did.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The school bus was gone in the morning.
So were Hannah, Harriet and Peg.
The kid at the gate went catatonic when I stalked up and started peppering with questions.
“He thinks you're going to hurt him?” Byron explained.
“Have I ever hurt a kid!” I yelled.
That wasn't helping.
“Get some answers,” I growled and walked away so the kid would calm down.
Byron barked out questions and we found out the trio had left before sunrise.
“Any ideas?”
Brian shrugged but looked like he knew something.
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“Talladega?”
“Are you guessing or are you telling me?”
“Don't bite my head off,” he snapped.
The kid at the gate wailed. A few others picked it up and huddled close to the barn. Did they think I was literally going to chew on his head?
“I was leaving this morning,” I grunted. “They did this so I would have to go after them.”
“They were talking about it last night,” Byron said. “Said we should do something.”
“And you didn't think to tell me.”
“I didn't think they would go off on their own.”
I stewed. I stalked. Anna kept her distance, but I saw her start toward me a couple of times only to catch herself and stop.
Whatever happened to them it served them right. If they left tomorrow, I'd be in Arkansas, probably reunited with my children.
Instead, it was another delay, another obstacle out of my control.
Except I could control how I reacted to it. I could just get on the bike and get going. I kept putting off my responsibility, my duty to my children so I could help others.
But that's not who I was.
Just look at the way the newbies and the kids reacted around me.
I wasn't a Robin Hood running off to rescue every damsel and child in distress. I was a monster, a hell hound to be released in the event of war.
The only person I should be helping is me.
I made up my mind to get on the bike and get gone, turned to the barn to get my gear.
Anna met me by the door.
“Brian's going after them.”
“Good.”
“And Byron.”
“Better.”
“Are you going to let them go on their own?”
“I didn't ask for this,” I snapped.
She followed me into our room and shut the door. I glared at it, glared at her and jerked my pack off the floor.
“Move.”
She put a hand on my chest. I flinched back. She kept at it, both hands this time and pushed me toward the thin back wall.
I let her.
She watched me with large eyes, tongue between her teeth like she did when she was concentrating. Her hands were warm and firm, hands that had soothed my aches, tended my wounds, hands that petted me, calmed me.
Was I a beast to her as well?
She saw something in my eyes and reached up to twine her fingers in my hair, drew me down for a kiss as she pressed me against the wall. Her body melted against mine.
I could breath and couldn't breathe at the same time. Her scent was intoxicating, a soapy clean smell, and just her. I dropped the pack and wrapped her in my arms, lifting her up. She curled her legs around my waist and gripped me tight. We stood there for what felt like hours, kissing, hugging, holding, but a knock on the door interrupted us.
Or stopped us.
She pulled her head away from mine and smirked.
“Want me to get that?”
I set her down and she wobbled to the door.
Brian waited on the other side. He had one of the hunting rifles slung across his back and a pike in each hand. One for me. Just in case.
“I'm not asking you to go after Peg,” he darted his eyes from me to Anna and back again. “But...”
“I'm going,” I sighed.
“Thank you.”
Byron popped up next to him.
“I knew you wouldn't leave Hannah in a pickle.”
“I wouldn't,” I said. “But you need to talk to her. How many damn times do I have to rescue that kid?”
He giggled. Brian giggled. Anna snickered.
But I was serious.
She couldn't run off on some harebrained idea and expect me to come in and save the day every time. It wouldn't work. The odds were she was going to get hurt. Stupid kid.
I kissed Anna again and they were nice enough to turn away.
“I want to finish this talk when we get back.”
She nodded, a smirk full of promise and potential.
I took one of the pikes from Brian, saw Byron's boys lined up and loaded for bear.
“Tyler,” I pointed him out. “Take three men and stay here to guard the others.”
He nodded.
One of the newbie men took his place.
“I can help,” he gulped.
He was average height, bearded face, thin, like the rest of us. He might have been a school teacher before, or an accountant. I looked at Byron and nodded.
“Give him a gun,” the boy said and one of his squad went to get a weapon.
“We need transport.”
“There's a house three miles from here,” said Byron. “We were going to bring the Suburban back here, but just hadn't yet.”
Good enough.
I checked the ammo in my rifle, hefted the pike and gave Anna one more look before I led the seven of us through the gate, in front of the trailers and down the drive.
The had a two-hour head start. I don't know what we were up against or what their plan was when they got there.
There were too many variables.
I did know I was pissed. One more obstacle. One more delay.
There was going to be hell to pay.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
“This is a bunch of bullcrap,” Byron muttered.
“People,” said Brian. “Bulls don't poop in portable toilets.”
“It stinks.”
“Bulls or people?” I smirked.
“Both. Why don't we just go in there?”
We hid behind a row of portable toilets on the edge of a grass parking lot near the trees. I could see specks of people moving around on the four corners of the grandstands that looked like guards. Byron passed me a set of procured binoculars and I studied the grounds.
“Do you see the bus?” Brian asked.
It was a chance we took. The bus might not have made it. They might have gone a different direction, gotten waylaid again, or encountered zombies.
But they were probably inside.
I trained the view toward one of the long tunnels and saw a tractor trailer rig in it. There was a familiar food depot logo on the back of the trailer.
“Overalls made it there,” I said.
“Hillbillies,” Brian spit.
“Probably a lot more than just him inside.”
“We need more guns,” Brian said. “How many can you shoot from here?”
“Give me enough time I could shoot them all.”
“But they would start shooting back.”
“Yeah, pretty quick too. I could get a dozen, maybe a couple more before they got me.”
“What if we set up cross fire?”
Byron snorted.
“Leave the planning to the tacticians,” he scoffed. “We're too far out for crossfire to work.”
“Another distraction?” Brian ignored him.
A distraction was always a good idea, but Talladega was surrounded by acres of open grass fields they used as a parking lot and for pre-race parties. Any action we took on one end wouldn't buy enough time for someone else to cross the expanse before being noticed.
And there were only seven of us.
“Not this time.”
“What then?”
The speedway was a great place for a set up. The track curved up like high walls, access was controlled through tunnels that were blocked off by wire fences that stretched across the openings.
The corners of the grandstands were manned with armed guards, small blinds built in the high access points that gave a commanding view of the grass fields outside, and the infield.
We weren't getting in without being invited.
I wasn't sure if Bubba was ready to extend an invitation.
“We need a trade.”
“What do we have that they want?” Brian asked.
“Me.”
“You're not going to trade yourself,” he said.
“Not even for Peg? For Hannah?
Byron looke
d like he was seriously considering it, but then shook his head.
“These rednecks double crossed you before, right? They would do it again. If you give yourself up, they would just keep Hannah and you. Probably kill you though.”
“Probably.”
“What then?” Brian grimaced.
I thought about Bubba and what he was after. He wanted food because that's what his advance guard had been sent out to find, like we sent out Byron and his squad.
Bubba's squad didn't want to do the work though. They wanted to drink and steal from others.
He wanted to take what people had. He wanted to rule like George Washington. Bubba wanted Talladega.
He needed guns to get it. But not just any guns, not our hunting rifles.
“I got it,” I said and began crawling back into the woods.
“What is it?”
The others melted back into the shadows and followed me. I didn't say anything until we got to the long SUV.
“We're going to break into an armory.”
Brian looked dubious but Byron was practically vibrating at the thought as we climbed into the truck and began our quest for Aniston.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The armory was six miles north of the Interstate. We knew we were there by the three Quonset huts painted the color of sand, the parking lot full of deuce and a half's, and a one-story brick building with no windows.
There was also a razor wire topped fence and BDU clad Zombies roaming around the buildings.
“Looks like the food depot,” I told them.
We were hiding on the side of the road, peeking around an overturned troop transport.
“How did you get in there?” Brian asked.
“Lawnmower.”
“You fought the Z with a lawnmower?” Byron whistled through his teeth. “That is so bad ass.”
I didn't have the heart to tell him it was my tried and true distraction technique. Let the kid have his dreams. Probably thought I started it up, and swung it around like a blade of whirling death.
Which gave me an idea.
I had to have a tree cut down from my backyard once after the neighbor complained. I complained back about his rotting fence, but he didn't do anything about it, and city code enforcement said I would have to with the tree or pay a fine.
