by Brown, TW
The plan, as I saw it, was to try and find a place where we could settle down for a while. This wasn’t gonna be permanent, but it would give us a base to search from until a suitable spot was found. The ideal location needed to be away from populated areas, but still allow us to be within a few hours of some potential sites. I needed to have us entrenched before the end of summer. That gave me about three months.
“We’ll be back before sunset,” I said.
“Papi!” Thalia came running up to the group of adults, Emily right on her heels.
I hopped off the hood and knelt to catch her in my arms. I looked up and made an exaggerated gesture of opening my arms even wider, nodding to Emily as I did. Each girl found her own cheek to kiss.
“Ewww,” Emily pulled back and glared at me with her dark, almond-shaped eyes, “you’re all scratchy.”
I wrapped an arm around her waist tight and did what any dad or father-type figure would do in a “normal” world, I gave her a good cheek-to-cheek rubbin’. There was a fair amount of squealing, and in moments I had both Emily and Thalia in a bit of a frenzy. When I finally stopped and the three of us looked up at the semi-circle of onlookers, I half expected stern faces, frowns of disapproval, and perhaps some worried looks due to the noise. What I saw were smiles. I became instantly self-conscious of all our laughter and felt just a bit guilty. Laughter was a rare event these days, and the three of us had just used up a month’s worth. Of course I’m being just a bit facetious, but it certainly feels that way.
“Okay,” I stood, allowing both girls to give me one last hug, “it’s time to get moving. I’ll see everybody before dinner.”
Thalia tugged on the pouch holding my spare magazines causing me to look down. She curled her index finger in the “come here” gesture so I bent down expecting one more kiss on the cheek.
“I love you, Papi,” she said.
A lump bloomed in my throat, and my vision got all blurry. “I love you, too, Thalia,” I managed…barely.
***
“That was the first time, wasn’t it?” Aaron stepped over an old log and held a branch out of the way so I could move past him. Jack and Jamie were about twenty yards ahead of us.
“Yeah.” I wasn’t gonna get all misty again. Seriously. It’s not gonna happen
“Doesn’t that make things harder?” Aaron asked.
“How so?”
“Well…” Aaron paused and I could tell he was trying to say something right without making me mad.
“Because I’m not really her dad,” I offered. “So if something bad were to happen, I’d be sad, but not as invested in it personally?”
“Something like that.”
“Maybe, but I honestly don’t know, because this is a lot of uncharted territory.”
“I’m not sayin’ you ain’t takin’ care of her,” Aaron said. “Only…how can you let yourself get close to anybody these days? Like Jamie and Teresa…”
There it is, I thought. This isn’t so much about me and Thalia, it’s about all of us, any of us. How do we care about each other now with death so prevalent? The world has turned upside down, and now another of his best friends has vanished. Every day somebody seems to die. And if they don’t, there’s no shortage of walking dead stumbling around. Still, some of us have found a purpose, or better yet, a person.
“You have a problem with Jamie hooking up with Teresa?” I asked.
“What? Uh, no!” Aaron slid on his hip down a particularly steep slope. “I’m happy for them. But when something happens to one or the other, we’ll have more to deal with than just another death.”
Wow, I thought, very impressed with this young man’s flow of logic. “Like you and Jamie with Billy’s—”
“There’s no proof that he’s dead!” Aaron cut me off.
“Okay,” I nodded, “but he’s still missing. And in many ways, that’s worse.”
Aaron was silent for a moment as I got up from sliding down the slope and dusted myself off. Looking ahead, we’d lagged behind to the point of losing sight of Jack and Jamie. I took the lead and picked up our pace a bit.
“You think he’s dead, don’t you?” Aaron finally asked.
“I’m not trying to change the subject,” I said, “but Ian was in the group, too.”
“Did you grow up with Ian?” Aaron shot back. “I’m not saying that him missing, or any of the other soldiers in that group are more or less important. What I’m trying to say is that making close attachments only seems like a way to set yourself up to get hurt.”
I didn’t have an argument for him. I wasn’t in agreement with his outlook, but I saw what he was trying to say.
“Hey!” Jack came hurrying back up the trail, saving me from having to say anything. “We got a bit of work to do. Jamie told me to ask you guys if you’d mind hurrying up a bit.”
The three of us moved as quickly, but as quietly as we could, through the woods and thick undergrowth. We came to a stop beside Jamie who was crouched down behind a car that was literally on its side in the deep ditch that ran alongside this stretch of road. It still had a piece of metal barrier caught in its bumper. The body inside, sprawled awkwardly against the windshield was honestly and truly dead. From the angle the head sat, I could guess the cause.
“I heard voices,” Jamie whispered so quietly I wasn’t sure I heard him as much as read his lips.
“Any guess on numbers?” I mouth-whispered back, un-shouldering my shotgun. Jamie held up one hand and swapped back and forth between three and five fingers while shrugging.
I pointed to Jack and gestured down the ditch we were using as cover one way and for Aaron to go the other. I indicated Jamie to stay put and then peeked around the front of the car to the road. I couldn’t see anything moving. Not even a zombie.
Scrambling up the embankment, I looked both ways, confirming the coast was clear, and scurried to the next closest vehicle, a rusted out, non-descript sedan. All four of its doors were gone. That’s kinda weird, I thought. Looking inside, I saw plenty of very old, dried blood. I climbed in back staying prone on the long bench-style seat. I lay still and listened. I could hear the tall, brown grass along the side of the road rustling in the gentle breeze.
Crunch.
The distinct sound of gravel underfoot tickled my senses. Somebody made a “shushing” sound, but only after smacking something, most likely the offender. It was silent for several heartbeats, then, I heard a whispering voice. It wasn’t clear enough to decipher, but there was an unmistakable urgency. Seconds later, I heard, and then felt, something come into contact with the car I was hiding in.
I was in a bad position. Currently on my stomach with my head inches away from the opening where the back door on the driver’s side used to be, the same side whoever was outside the car was on. Then it got worse. I felt somebody slide up against the other side.
Hmmm. Whoever was out there couldn’t know about us. One of them was “hiding” right where Jamie could pick them off. No, they were watching for or hiding from something farther up the road.
“Ricky!” the voice closest to my head hissed.
“Yeah?” a very young sounding voice answered.
“You see where Toad and Princess went?”
“They ran for that water truck.”
“Well I didn’t hear anything,” the voice sounded angry. “I think they made that up so we’d all hide and them two could go someplace and fuck again.”
“Yeah,” Ricky sighed. “Well I say we leave ‘em. I can’t take much more of those two hangin’ all over each other every minute of every day.”
“It’s kept Princess off your back.”
“Good point,” Ricky said with an odd grimness.
I reached down slowly and flipped open my leather holster. Very carefully, I drew my .45 and waited for the next verbal exchange to ease off the safety.
“Should we go check on them?” Ricky finally broke the silence and provided me with my opportunity.
“Nah
,” the other voice grumbled. I heard a shifting and sliding sound. He’d obviously slid down and was now likely leaning against the rear quarter panel of my hideout.
“You got any of them berries left?” Ricky asked, sounding like a child in the backseat on a road trip with his parents.
“You already ate all yours?”
“C’mon, Pete,” Ricky was practically whining, “I ain’t had nothin’ but that nasty soup for two days now.”
“Whatcha got for trades?” Pete sounded kinda sleazy.
“I got that pack of socks.”
“For berries? No trade.”
There was a long silence. I lay there, sweat starting to trickle down my spine to the small of my back. I was struck by this conversation. Certainly it couldn’t be that bad for folks. It’d only been a few months. Sure, a lot has happened, but so far, finding food hadn’t been that big of a problem.
“I’ll take your turn with Princess,” Ricky blurted, actually startling me just a bit.
“Two.”
A long pause, then, “Fine.”
I heard some rustling sounds, then a slight shudder of the vehicle.
“Thanks,” Ricky said.
“See if you feel that way tomorrow,” Pete chuckled. I didn’t much care for Pete.
There was another long silence. I began to wonder what Jamie, Aaron, and Jack were up to. I knew that Jamie was in a position where he could see Ricky at least. He’d definitely seen me duck into this car. But it was, for all intents and purposes, silent out there. I tried to breathe as quietly as possible and keep the pistol ready. As cruel as it might sound, I knew I would shoot the first person to pass in front of either opening. I wouldn’t be waiting to figure out if they were gonna be friendly or not. Then I heard approaching footsteps from the front.
“Pete?” a new voice called. “Where’s Ricky?”
“Here,” Ricky answered and I could hear him getting to his feet. Whoever was approaching came to a stop and I heard Pete climb to his feet as well. I took in a slow, deep breath and held it, ready to shoot.
“Princess says you two need to move your lazy asses and help unload some water bottles,” the new voice said. “Fetch the cart and get up here.”
A single shot rang out and something collided with the front of the car. Ricky and Pete both began shouting and I felt Pete slam against his side of the car. Another shot sounded and I felt something hit the rear bumper.
“Ricky!” Pete yelled.
I took that moment to push forward and turn onto my right side. I was already squeezing the trigger as the hand holding my pistol cleared the empty doorway. My bullet took the young man who couldn’t be older than twenty—but looked more likely to be Aaron and Jamie’s age—in the neck. He fell back, his own gun skidding across the asphalt. His hands came up, clutching at his throat as blood poured between his fingers. He mouthed something that looked like “Why?” which burned an image in my mind that I tried desperately to shake clear.
Another volley of shots rang out and chips from the road flew up, hitting the back of my head and neck. Another bullet slammed into the car’s rear quarter panel, and I swear I felt it buzz the top of my head. I ducked back inside as another bullet sent a puff of dust rising from the backrest of the bench seat.
“Drop your gun!” a voice called, followed by the boom of a shotgun.
I heard the clatter of a gun hitting the pavement. Slowly, I peeked up over the headrest on the driver’s side. It took me a moment to really process what I was seeing. Possibly the biggest man I’d ever seen in my life stood a dozen or so yards away with his hands up. I knew it was a man because of the three-day-old growth of beard on his face. The long, curly wig on his head was askew, covering part of his face, but the other side with the abundance of make-up on it was visible. A garish amount of bright green eye shadow made a swathe of color all the way to the temple. The ruby-red lipstick was heavily smeared and visible in the man’s chin stubble. I guessed him to be well over six-and-a-half-feet tall, close to four hundred pounds, and not much of it was fat. His massive, barrel-chest threatened to burst every button on the flowery dress that was stuffed like a sausage casing.
“Don’t shoot!” a deep voice rumbled forth from the behemoth.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” I breathed, sitting up and sliding out of the back of the car while keeping my gun trained on a target that there was no way I could miss.
“Please,” the big man pleaded, “I don’t want any problems. I’ll do whatever you ask. Just don’t kill me.” The man actually began to blubber, tears rolling down his cheek in a Technicolor waterfall.
“Sound off, guys!” I called.
“Yo!” Jamie stepped out from behind the car he’d been behind, shotgun resting on one hip.
“I’m good,” Aaron called from behind me, but I couldn’t turn and take my eyes off the sight before me.
“Um…present.” Jack stepped up onto the road waving an arm.
“Please,” the big man knelt, keeping his hands up in the process, “don’t kill me.”
“You can’t be Princess,” Jamie blurted, letting me know he’d heard at least some, if not all, of the conversation between Pete and Ricky.
The big man’s head swung slowly, nodding, “Yes, I’m Princess.”
“And these three?” I waved one hand around indicating the carnage on the ground around me and the car I’d been hiding in.
“My sweet, sweet boys,” Princess sobbed.
“You freakin’ weirdo!” Jamie spat, climbing up the embankment of the ditch and onto the road.
The big man suddenly lifted his chin and glared defiantly at Jamie. I saw something in his eyes that was fierce and dangerous. Then, in an instant, it was gone again and the lower lip came out quivering.
“Who were these…boys?” I asked, stepping to the rear of the car and glancing down at the body. My God, I thought, it was a boy. This one looked even younger than Pete, the one I’d blown the throat out of.
“My sweet, swee—”
“Boys!” Jamie snapped, pumping the shotgun. “We get it. But you better start saying something meaningful real soon or I’m gonna splatter your brains all over this road!”
“Jamie!” I moved away from the boy at my feet.
“What?” Jamie only took his eyes off the big man for a second to glare at me. “This…this monster’s been wandering around doing who-knows-what to these three boys because he can! Give me a reason not to blast the creep.”
“Because,” Aaron had walked up during the tirade and stopped beside me, “we haven’t let him talk. We aren’t monsters or cold-blooded murderers like some people.”
“It’s not what you think,” Princess sniffed.
“I think you’ve been using those boys for your sick, selfish desires!” Jamie shouted.
“How dare you!” Princess retorted. He made a move to stand, but the four guns that homed in on him seemed to make him rethink his options and he settled back down to his knees.
Once again I saw something in those eyes. Something behind the tears and running mascara. Something cold, vicious, and…evil? Was I allowing my prejudice against somebody so different to cloud my thinking?
“Those were my sweet boys!” Princess insisted. “Each one personally saved by me from the clutches of death at the hands of those terrible monsters.”
“Then why did one of them have to trade two turns with Princess?” I asked, remembering the exchange between Pete and Ricky.
Princess’ eyes grew wide, and now I believed the fear I could see in them. Jack was moving slowly to put himself directly behind our captive while still keeping his distance. Aaron was staring down at the dead body lying in a puddle of blood at our feet. A soft noise, barely above a whisper overpowered the tense silence.
Jamie broke and ran for the rear of the car where I’d figured Ricky to be dead; basically forgotten like the other two I’d seen and knew to be dead. Princess shifted and I leveled my gun again, shaking my head in warnin
g. The big man’s head dropped, and the disheveled wig finally gave up and fluttered to the ground looking like a giant, dead poodle. The exposed head was mostly hairless. Princess had some severe male pattern baldness.
“He’s alive,” Jamie called. “Barely.”
“Is he gonna make it?” Aaron asked, scooting around the front of the car to get over to Jamie’s side.
“Easy,” Jamie’s voice grew soft. “Ricky, is it?”
“Is my sweet Ricky okay?” Princess sounded genuinely concerned.
“No,” Jamie’s voice sounded pained.
I heard whispered conversation, but couldn’t make out any of what was being said. I desperately wanted to move closer, but I was scared to turn away from Princess for a second, even with Jack covering—mostly because I didn’t know Jack well enough. I’d never been in a sticky situation with him, so there was no way to know how he might respond.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“He took one in the chest,” Jamie reported. “I think it’s a lung.”
“Every single one of those deaths is your fault,” hissed Aaron at the big man, bringing his rifle up to his shoulder.
“Aaron,” I had a very bad feeling all of a sudden, “why don’t we just bring things down a notch?”
“No,” Aaron insisted. “This sick bastard is all part of everything that happens every single goddamn day!”
“We have no idea what the situation is,” I reminded him of his own argument from earlier, “we haven’t let the man talk. We aren’t the monsters.”
“I’ve heard all I need to,” Aaron said flatly.
What was being said over there? I wondered. Obviously Ricky was talking, and every so often I heard Jamie say or ask something else. Aaron was in a position to hear it all.
“And who are you to judge me, boy?” Princess’ voice had changed tone. It was gruff and harsh, fitting of the gigantic man kneeling on the pavement.
