by Chris Lowry
I set the glass down with most of the contents intact and moved to the window. The house looked out on several others, and a community park that now served as a garden.
"We have been here since after the beginning," he said. "The walls were there. We just closed the gates."
He moved to stand beside me. I could feel his heavy presence next to me, the weight of the community hanging on him like the ever-present smell of vodka seeping through his pores.
The community might be safe, but there was a cost to keep it that way.
"What are you not saying?" I asked in a low voice.
"I say everything," the Ambassador answered. "You hear nothing."
I waited to see if my gut kicked off alarm bells, but nothing.
Since the Z plague, my instinct for self-preservation had turned me into a radar about danger.
But it wasn't going off now.
Just me and a tired old man staring out of the window.
"I do not know why I am still alive," he sighed. "But here I am. I think, perhaps, doing this good deed will help relations between our countries, if they were still around."
He smiled a sad smile and shared it with me.
"I think it's always been different for people," I told him. "I went to Europe when I was in college. Backpacked around for awhile. People hated America, but loved Americans, especially if we tried to butcher their native tongue."
"This is like same in Russia," the Ambassador said. "We hate America. But love the people who come to visit."
"Guess we're not going to Russia anymore," I said.
It took effort to keep the sadness out of my voice. He didn't have that luxury.
"I am not going home again."
I ignored the small sob and stared through the window to give him a moment to compose.
It didn't take him as long as I expected.
"This is home now," he sniffed. "It is good home."
I nodded.
“Are you here to see if you wish it to be your home?” he asked.
The blurry eyes weren’t so out of focus now, watching me, waiting.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The garden beyond the building looked good. A small pond stocked with fish, three boys sitting on the bank with cane poles in hand just behind it. A chore now instead of a past time.
Fish and veggies and whatever they could scavenge.
He settled into one of the chairs and invited me to sit beside him.
"It looks like a good place," I told him.
The tour had carried us through town, up and down narrow walk streets. People worked or sat and watched us.
Not scared. Just curious.
“We have been watching you,” he said.
“The kid in the woods.”
He laughed.
“Was no kid,” the Ambassador said. “Was Gregory.”
As if I would know him by name.
He pointed.
A small guy walked down the street, away from us.
“He still looks like a kid.”
“Is specialty of his,” the Ambassador told me. “Slight frame. Can move fast, if he likes.”
“Yeah, he disappeared into the woods when I went looking.”
“Another trick,” he waved it away.
“Were we supposed to follow him here?”
He nodded.
“Why?”
He shrugged.
“What do you want from us?”
“Why must I want anything?”
“Nothing’s for free,” I said. “Not anymore.”
His head bounced in agreement even as the words left his mouth.
“Is very American of you,” he grumbled. “To think no one will offer you anything without exchange for it.”
“I think Russia was the same way,” I told him. “Oil barons.”
He laughed.
“I was one.”
“You?”
“Dah,” he laughed again. “Do you think being Ambassador was cheap? I was billionaire before all of this.”
It was my turn to shake my head.
“Is unexpected?”
“Yes,” I said. “I suppose. But Z doesn’t care about your money.”
“No. It does not.”
“Then you know it’s a trade.”
“Not this time. You will stay," he said, as if it was decided.
"We can't," I told him. "I can't. I'm looking for someone."
I wanted to stay.
It would be easier to stay. Bem and the Boy would be safe. Anna would be safe. We would be safe.
But I couldn't live with myself if I did.
"People are not so easy to find now," he said.
"Don't I know it."
"Do you?"
He stared at me with ice gray eyes that seemed to look right through me, to the heart of me.
"You do," he said after a moment.
"You do know. An impossible task with a hopeless outcome. Yet you persist."
He lifted his glass and toasted me.
"It's my kid," I tried to explain.
"I do not have children," he said. "I do not know this type of love."
But that is what it was. Love, right.
Not some outdated sense of obligation that an absentee dad feels toward his child.
The old arguments wrestled to resurface, and I shut them down, tucking them into compartments in my mind for later examination.
That vodka must have been strong, stronger than I was used to drinking.
It made the walls fall, and I couldn't have that. Not yet.
"You put your friends in danger for one person?" he asked.
It seemed like an innocent question.
One that almost got him killed.
I boxed up that rage monster and shoved it on a shelf before it could get out too.
"Everywhere is dangerous," I told him.
"Not here."
"Outside of these walls," I said.
"They would not have to leave these walls."
I would.
But they didn't have to.
Was that what he was doing? Laying out terms so we could negotiate?
"What do you want?"
He shrugged again.
"I want nothing," he said. "We need new people. Survivors. Your group would make a hardy addition to our colony."
"Where's the angle?" I squinted.
"I do not know this angle," he said and kept his eyes locked on mine.
"Then what do you want?"
Footsteps pounded the wooden floor outside the door and it was thrown open to reveal a breathless young man gulping air.
"You better come quick," he gasped.
The Ambassador threw a last glance at me, then rushed out of the room still holding his glass of vodka.
I picked up mine, sniffed before taking a sip, and set it back down with a sigh.
Whatever he had stirred up was contained now.
Like a tiger in a paper cage.
The drink would just melt the bars, so better to leave it.
I followed the Ambassador and wondered what he was trying to hide.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Brian stood in front of a three story yellow house, between a pastel blue and light green one on a side street.
“They say this is ours,” he said.
The others were gathered around him, staring at the house.
“What are we supposed to do with it?” the Boy asked.
“Stay,” said Peg.
I heard the others muttering as they whispered behind me.
The Ambassador hooked his thumbs in the corner of his pants pockets and watched me from the corner of his eye.
“Is good?”
“It’s great,” said Brian.
“Is place for you all to be safe,” the Ambassador said.
“What’s the catch?” I asked again.
“No catch,” he answered. “You stay, you help. This is the American Dream. A democracy in budding action.”
Brian nodded, but I don’t think he meant to. I think he was just agreeing in general. To the concept of rebuilding, not the actual picture perfect community stuck in the middle of the woods.
“When something is too good to be true,” I said. “I get nervous.”
“We looked around,” Peg said. “We checked.”
“He wants something,” I said in a low voice to Brian.
“But what?”
I didn’t have an answer for him.
The kids drifted closer to me, Bem and the Boy sharing looks at the house, then to me.
“It doesn’t give me the heebie jeebies,” Bem said.
I opened up my Spidey senses. They weren’t tingling either.
I tried a glare on, and turned my scowl toward the Ambassador.
My kids made fun of me a lot for the look before the Z showed up.
They would ask, “Dad, why are you so mad?”
“It’s just my face,” I would answer.
Some people have resting bitch face. I have resting rage face.
There are phrases created about “if looks could kill.” My look stated “I will kill you.”
It worked.
The Ambassador stepped back, putting distance between us.
Enough room to turn and run if he needed.
But he didn’t run.
He smiled and held up his hands in an imitation of surrender.
“It is the world now,” he said. “Where there is no something for nothing. We talked of this. But you have children in your group. You have women. You protect them. We see this. Gregory says you are good man. Good people.”
His finger wiggled to indicate my face.
“Not so good looking perhaps,” his smile grew wider if that was even possible. “You have been rough out there. But here, if you want to help, you are welcome.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
I sat on the porch and waited. I wasn’t sure what I was waiting for.
The other shoe to drop, maybe. The chickens coming home to roost. The piper to demand payment for his bill.
I listed a litany of expressions about how this wasn’t the perfect place and they wanted something in exchange for our night of peaceful sleep.
When I spied Stroud and Gregory walking toward me, I figured they were coming to collect.
Up close, they looked like brothers. Gregory was square crow thin and tiny, like a horse jockey. He had black hair and bright eyes, that looked just like Stroud’s.
“Trouble,” he said in a voice that was too deep for his frame.
They were both armed. I was not.
“For me?”
“It’s not for us,” said Stroud.
He stepped back like he was waiting for me to join them, and when I did, they began walking me toward the back of the community.
I tried to think of what I would do if they went for their weapons.
“I was backtracking your bus,” said Gregory. “Someone was following you.”
“You.”
“Someone else.”
They led me to the brick fence that surrounded the suburban pocket of homes. A watchtower was built of scaffolding with a small shed on the top floor in the corner.
Stroud let out a sharp whistle.
The guard at the top put his hand out of the window and waved us up.
Gregory scrambled up the scaffolding poles like a ladder. I followed with Stroud bringing up the rear.
Gregory rolled to the inside of the frame when he reached the top just as a trap door in the roof opened to let us into the shed.
They had cut out windows in the metal wall affording a view from three sides of the building. A couple of chairs made watching more comfortable, with a tiny cache of supplies in the corner.
And weapons. Four rifles lined in a row, locked and loaded, ready to use.
“There,” the guard pointed.
He passed Gregory a set of binoculars and he handed them to me.
I looked in the direction they pointed.
There was nothing to see at first. Just trees.
Then a hazy line of smoke on the edge of my field of vision drifted across the canopy of branches and I followed it down.
“There are a dozen I could count,” Gregory said. “Maybe more if others were out hunting.”
I grunted.
“You know them?” Stroud asked. “Are they with you?”
I kept the binoculars pressed to my eyes and searched.
It was difficult to make out faces from this distance. But the image gave me a feeling.
Not a good one.
“They look…hard,” said Gregory. “All men. Not soldiers, but rough.”
I took the binoculars away and passed them to Stroud.
“They’re not with us,” I said.
“After you though,” Gregory added. “I circled around and they have been tracking you.”
“How far did you go?” I asked.
“Not as far as I would have liked on foot.”
“If they’re not with you, then they’re trouble,” said Stroud.
I didn’t know who they were, but I had a suspicion.
“How do you handle trouble around here?” I asked.
“The hard way,” said Stroud.
“Is that what you need me for?” I said with a soft sigh.
This was it. The ask. The reason they wanted us to stay.
An enforcer.
Gregory smiled.
“No, that’s not what we need.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“Do you need a tissue?” Peg asked.
“I’m fine,” I said.
“Then stop pouting.”
I almost snapped back, but she was right. I sat on the top step on the porch of the yellow house, arms on my knees and glared.
I glared at the street. At the people who passed by. I glared at the garden and the pond that twinkled beyond it.
I glared in the direction of the watchtower and the men who went over the wall.
And as soon as she said it, I realized the glare was a way to hide the pout.
I had wanted to go with them. I wanted to find the men tracking us. I wanted to stop them.
And I was mad they didn’t need me to help.
I took a deep breath.
“Quit calling me on my crap, Peg,” I muttered.
“Then don’t make it so easy to do,” she said.
I grunted.
“And grunting doesn’t help your cause,” she added.
Brian came out of the house and plopped on the porch beside me. He splayed his legs and leaned back on one hand.
“They have tea here,” he said and held up a red Solo cup to show me. “No ice though.”
He took a sip and grimaced.
“And no sugar?” I asked.
“Not a drop to be found in the whole place.”
“Grain,” said Peg.
“Thanks hon.”
Brian offered me a sip from his cup and I took a big swallow.
“I’ve been thinking,” I said to him.
“Uncharted waters,” said Peg.
“Yeah, well we’ve been planning a lot more lately, and I’ve noticed the more we plan, the less we have to react.”
“No plan survives a punch to the face,” Brian advised. “Do you think we’re going to get punched here?”
I was glad to see he was worried too.
