by catt dahman
Alex ran up with a hug for Beth, excited by the news that Kim was back. “I heard. Kim is back in the fold of the family; how cool is that?”
Len felt a wave of discomfort as he pondered this situation. On one hand, was this new woman, Carla, who did not want to be far from Kim. On the other hand, was Beth who had been with Kim, but now was with Juan. Damned soap opera. Drama made his skin twitch. “Well, we have dorms…living quarters…you can stay there, and we have plenty of food; you can rest up and then find some job to keep you busy.”
“We kill the Zs.That’s what we do.”
“Good, so do we. We can look into that as a possible job with some training.”
“Training?” Carla barked a laugh. “You’ve gotta be kidding me. We’ve been out there this whole time, not in a safe spot, out with those things.”
“Well, even so, we have our own ways of doing things around here that you will learn with some training…how to work in a team, and it has worked for us so far. Kim always led a team.” Len remembered.
“Then, we’d want to be on his team.” Carla let the last word hang in heavy sarcasm.
“Robbie, our youngest on a team and not by popular choice, is twelve.”
“He’s eight and good at it. We kill all we can,” Carla said, looking around curiously at everyone, wondering why they didn’t all fight. Didn’t they know that all zombies had to be killed?
“At eight, they do schooling and have kid activities the teachers plan; the activities are fun for them. We let the kids have some sort of childhood,” Len said. He was beginning not to like this woman who had just come in and was already questioning how they did things. “Kids belong in school and on play grounds.”
“Amen, children don’t need to be fighters when they are just babies, except for Amazons.” Alex pulled one of Hannah’s braids so that she grinned at him; she had been steadily glaring at the woman and child.
Carla shrugged and made a flitting motion with one hand. “Kim promised we would stay only long enough for some meds and for him to be sewn up so the bleeding would stop.”
“I see,” Len said, “I imagine from the way he looks, Doc will get him hydrated, fed, rested, and back healthy; it may take a little while. I’m sure we all want what is best for Kim.”
“And that’s to get back on the road; we like moving around. Less rules.”
“If Kim even feels that way now that he’s back home,” Alex said.
“I’m sure he’ll decide when he can, what he wants,” Len said. Julia already would have been all over this woman. Alex and Beth were trading grimaces as it were. This woman implied a relationship with Kim, and now was simply not the time to go into it when Kim practically showed her and the child little concern when he came in.
“Robbie doesn’t want to start schooling or bother with the other kids when we won’t be here long,” Carla said.
One thing, even out-numbered, the woman held her own.
“Some may not fit in here with us, but we like it. We’re all friends of Kim’s. He always liked how we did things around here,” Alex said.
“Times change,” Carla responded, “I think you’ll find Kim has changed.”
Juan was past irritated. “Then if he has and doesn’t like it here, he’ll go, but I don’t know why there’s this big of a talk. We’ll trade stories, get him patched up, and let him see what he wants. Why are you rocking the boat?”
“ Just explaining we won’t be staying. That’s fine by me. But he has changed. We aren’t here for friendship,” Carla told them, holding glances with Juan, Beth, Len, and Alex. She glared at Juan a long time.
“My, aren’t you just Miss Mary Sunshine, making friends wherever you go,” Alex said, getting angry. Beth patted his arm.
“Not here for friends. Again, we are here for Kim to get patched. We helped the rest get here safely, which is what Kim wanted to do. I was one of the people out there killing those bastards last night outside your fence. Seems one of your bullets caught his leg.”
“It was bad aim, hitting high,” Hannah said, letting everyone figure out what she meant by that. She had enough of these new people upsetting her mom and the rest; she could see everyone gritted teeth and showed anger.
“We’ll wait and see what Kim says. Okay?” Len hated the slippery slope.
“I’ll ask him when I can talk to him.” Carla said, backing off some. “I guess we can sleep anywhere you give us. For now.”
“How long have you been traveling with Kim?” Len asked conversationally.
“I don’t know, Week or so. Before that, we followed him a while.”
“Followed him?”
“Watched him. We didn’t understand why he didn’t come back here.”
“Ah, well, I guess we wondered the same thing,” Len said. “His friend, Andie, said he had some things to work out; he went through a bad time and had some anger left.”
“Yes. I know who Andie is. We saw her. Kim said she was a prisoner, too.”
“You wanna see the place you can use to sleep and rest? Robbie can stay with you,” Len said. He needed to calm this down, and he didn’t even know what the issue was. He would have to get Alex and Johnny to explain it later. They would know. If not for his friendship with Kim and not understanding why he traveled with these people, he would be tempted to ask her to leave.
“I wish Julia were here,” Beth told Juan with a chuckle. He held back a huge laugh as he thought about that.
“It’s better she’s not if you think about it,” Juan said.
“Okay. Hey, you’re Beth? Right.”
“I’m Beth. Why?”
“Kim said he dreaded having to face you and answer your questions; he almost didn’t come here for help because of you,” Carla said, cocking her head.
Beth tightened her jaw. “Well, thank you for sharing that. Wow, I really feel great knowing that. Miss Sunshine is so apt a name,” she said sarcastically to Alex. “That is such a nice thing for you to share with us.”
Carla shrugged and didn’t respond.
Len led Robbie and Carla down the path, glancing back at Beth with an apologetic look.
“That was rude,” Beth muttered, “what is her problem?”
“She doesn’t seem to like us, and she hasn’t even met Jules,” Juan laughed again.
“She is strange anyway. I can’t imagine Kim wanting to be around someone like her. Weird chick,” Hannah said, “wonder why she’s so bitchy?”
“No idea. I don’t like her; she’s just rude. I think I’ll spy,” Alex said as he followed, holding a finger to his lips for everyone to be quiet as he wanted to hear anything else the strange woman said. Hannah went to join him.
“Those two are both about fifteen in their own minds,” Beth said, “I swear Alex is like a playmate to her…goofs.”
“Sorry you had to deal with that stress and that freaky woman.”
“Seems she hates us from the glaring she did and what she said. Maybe she hates everyone in general; no wonder she likes to be on her own, away from people; I doubt many like her.”
“She’s not making friends.”
“What now, Honey?” Juan asked. “You have a troubled look in your eyes.”
“I’m going to check on Kim; I know you hate it, I hate having to do this, but I need to put an end to this chapter. It’s like I would check on anyone I wondered about; what the hell have they been thinking all this time?”
“I know you have questions.”
“I want him to know I have moved on, so he has no expectations from me. He can’t waltz back and be some kind of long lost hero.”
“He had a bad time of it,” Juan said, wondering why he took up for the man.
“Yes, he did. But he didn’t bother all this time to let his friends know he was okay. That’s not very responsible.”
“Okay. True.”
“It’s very true. I want all of this with a dot at the end. Finished. Everything clear and over with.”
“I
t’s not over really; you have to tell him about the baby,” Juan said.
“I don’t know if I want to, especially now; I think it’s just way too much trouble,” she said.
“You have to do what’s right. For yourself.”
“If he’s leaving again, then I can’t see why he would need to know.He doesn’t have to stay so that woman and he can make things more difficult for us.”
“I understand that.”
“I just don’t want all the other issues with it. I’m glad he’s okay; he can stay or go; I just want things how they’ve been, how they are now.”
“Beth, I love you, and nothing’s gonna change that. I’m going to go sit by the river and rest a little while; you come along when you are done.”
“Juan, I made my choice because I want to be with you.”
“Good. But if you come to tell me that you wanna be with Kim, then I just don’t know what to do. I won’t go down without a fight, but you have to go talk to him and figure this out.”
“Juan, I won’t come tell you that. I love you.”
“Go on, and get this figured out; you do the best for you and Hannah, Katie, and that baby, Kim’s baby. He does have that edge over me, his baby.”
“This isn’t fair, to any of us. In my head, lately, it’s been our baby.”
“But it isn’t.”
She heard the pain in his voice, but he turned and walked away. She wanted Alex or Jules to be there. Misty or Johnny would have helped.
“Doc, can I come in?”
“Come on in, Beth.”
“How is he?”
“The bullet was bulging at his skin. I made the tiniest shallow cut, and it popped out. Wasn’t that great? I’m using super glue on that part, and the front is already stitched and packed. Getting it smeared with cream and bandaged right now. He’s very fortunate. A tiny bit more, and it would have gone out, and he wouldn’t have had the bleeding to deal with.”
“So he’ll be okay?”
“I would think so. I doubt there will be a problem except for germs; wounds get infected easy with all this death around us. May be sore a while.”
“I can hear you talking about me, yanno,” Kim said.
“Good, I don’t have to repeat myself,” Doc said.
“How’d you catch a stray bullet?”
“We were picking a few off at the edges during your fight last night,” Kim said. “Got the crawlers and popped them. Simple. I was helping since I was there at the time.”
“Wow. It’s funny ‘cause I swore that I saw you; then, I thought I imagined it, but it was you. You could have said something, you know. Why did you hide with the fight going on?”
“I didn’t intend to come here. I planned on moving along after Bill and them were safe here.”
“I see. Well, that’s not very considerate since you have friends who have worried about whether you were okay or not.”
“Okay, now here’s your IV going in. I want to get you hydrated,” Doc said. He stuck the needle in, taped it, and checked everything. Kim gave him a dirty look but didn’t pull away.
“I don’t need it.”
Doc ignored him and began setting up the bag on its stand to drip. “Don’t argue, or you’ll waste my time; I’ll still win. I want to add an antibiotic since you told me that you just had an infection not long ago.”
“It was good to see Earl.”
“I was shocked to find him. It was just an accident we did. Hannah and Jet saved him, really; then, we brought him back here. You trust Doc, he got Earl fixed up, so you better behave with him, and let him do his job.”
“Yes, Ma’am. Carry on, Doc.”
“Andie and Mark will be really glad to see you. Andie has such a…kinship…a bond with you,” Beth said it sugary sweet.
“Andie? “Kim laughed. “You think she and I had a thing going?” He knew her tone of voice, and it amused him.
“Yes. She goes on and on about how she gets your feelings, and you have this deep bond…blah blah blah…yadda yadda yadda…you and she are so close.”
“Okay. Now we’ll get an antibiotic in the line,” Doc said. “Don’t get me wrong, this is the best conversation I’ve ever heard in here, but I do have other things to do. Good gossip entertains me, but I get too tempted to repeat it, so I better get moving.”
Kim chuckled more. “That’s funny. I can’t imagine Andie insinuating that. Strange. Now Mark, she and he had some wild, loud lovin’, shook the walls a few nights, but it wasn’t me; it was him.”
“Mark? Misty’s Mark?”
“Oops.” Kim grinned.
“Oh, God, I am so glad I have an oath to keep things to myself, though I can assure you I may still tell George all this if he gets me drunk,” Doc said.
“Shit. Guess I didn’t need to say that.” Kim smiled. He hid his eyes with one arm, wondering why he had blurted that out.
Doc grinned. “He’s had a pain killer so his inhibitions are low right now; he might say a lot of things he wouldn’t normally say.” He finished and left them alone in the room. “I’m better off not hearing any more of this anyway; just keep in mind he may say things he’ll later wish he hadn’t said.”
“Okay, now I really don’t like Andie,” Beth said, “Misty is one of my best friends. Damn.”
“I said oops. I didn’t mean to say that aloud. I was thinking it.”
“Whatever. I love Mark, but I am disappointed in him.”
“Oh Beth, you have no idea what we went through; it was torture being whipped, being pissed on…being beaten…her being raped.”
“Raped? Oh.”
“Many times. Many men. It was very bad.”
“Then why’d she want sex?”
“Clean sex. It probably made her remember that it could be good and not with beatings and fear…I dunno…I’m not a psychiatrist. You have one here yet?”
“No.”
“It was bad, Beth. We were fed scraps of human flesh; that was all the food we got sometimes, and it was sickening, but we were starving. When they were bored, they had entertainment that made the Romans feeding Christians to the lions a joke. We watched people being burned alive and being fed to zombies so people could make bets on it.”
“My, God. They...why? How could they do that?”
“That’s what they do. Some liberal do-gooder would say they are reacting to the stress of the end of the world and acting out through violence.”
“No, that is evil.”
“Yup. I think they attract that type. The leaders like the bad guys a lot.”
“They all enjoyed mistreating you?”
He turned. “Look at my back.”
Beth helped him pull his shirt up; feelings stirred within her as she remembered the way he smelled and felt beneath her fingertips and how she had enjoyed seeing his bare skin. She looked at his back this time and burst into tears, putting her head down on the bed, crying hard.
“Awe, Beth, don’t cry. I didn’t wanna make you cry this way. I just keep messing up. Huh?”
“Your poor back, my God, I can’t imagine the pain,” she kept crying. He reached for her with his arm that wasn’t hooked to the IV and pulled her close and held her. “Oh, Kim, my God, your back.”
“Shhhh. I didn’t mean to upset you this way, was just showing you how bad things were so that you get why we did some insane things and why Mark slept with Andie…when he didn’t even feel human anymore with all the nightmares. That’s what we went through, Honey.”
Beth cried a while. It actually felt better, getting it all out. She finally dried her face and sat back in the chair close to his bed.
“I think Mark and Andie were just…finding some comfort; don’t hate him.”
She sighed, unsure how she would handle the secret. She wished she didn’t know any of this. “I love Misty and Mark both. I don’t hate anyone. I can’t say I’m fond of Andie despite all that. What about you?””
“Afterwards, I went mad, I guess. I wanted them a
ll to suffer. I haven’t told you the worst, Beth. I scalped them, the RA guys. No one knows that, Beth. Carla may suspect, I guess…don’t know. Don’t care.” He felt a relief, as if confession had lifted a weight. “I don’t know why, I just felt so much hate, and I scalped them. It wasn’t even something that bothered me. I’m a bit of a monster, huh?”
“No. You have post-traumatic stress syndrome whatever. I don’t know; George is the resident psychologist.” She shivered, imagining him scalping the men. She didn’t ask if they were alive or dead when he did it and didn’t want to know, or she would vomit. It was hard to imagine that much fear and anger and reacting to it.
“I did it. I don’t need an excuse. We found more than just Ivory Joe and his group who were chained up; they had caught them, RA guys and cuffed and chained them and left them; they were humane, or maybe they were more cruel, making them suffer.”
“He said they caught some and left them to ‘fate and God’.”
“I guess I was fate then.”
“Oh.”
“And I scalped them, too. I went crazy, remembering what they did to the children and everyone and what they did to me. All of them did that stuff, making bets on people who were tortured. The leaders, Lucas and Frank, they welcomed people who were deranged. But it was all of us beaten and whipped.”
“Jeez, Kim. The pain alone….”
“Wasn’t pleasant. I took ten lashes once and five another time. The stripes got infected.”
“So you stayed away because of your anger at them? The need you had for revenge?”
“That’s why…because I became a monster and because I wanted to hunt them. I wanted to make them scream and suffer for what we went through. I had an image of picking them off one by one, the whole army of them.”
“Maybe coming back would have helped you.”
“I felt unfit; I feel unfit to be around you all. What I’ve done is pretty gruesome.” He blinked tears at the ceiling. “I still want to do it. I want them to suffer.”
Beth brushed his tears away. “Stop. You need to visit with Pan and George and Len. None of us are saints; we do the best we can, and that’s all we can do. I’m glad you’re okay and back here. I guess we’ve all done some scary things and felt angry and helpless.
