by Brown, TW
That is the thing about a small community like ours; everybody knows everybody else’s business. Keeping any kind of secret is next to impossible.
“And once the doc got that guy to talk, well, I guess that put everybody on edge.” Morris reached down, picked up a rock and threw it at a shadow. Nothing moved and we kept walking. That was a common way to flush out any zombies that might be lurking in the shadows. They react to whatever noise is the most recent.
“Wait? What?” I blurted, probably a little louder than I should considering the fact that we were supposed to be scouting for any possible trouble. Not likely that we would sneak up on anybody as I was making all this noise.
“Yeah, I guess the guy was one of the scouts from that army. He gave up numbers, all sorts of stuff. Said that they had no quarrel with us, and that they actually wanted to ask us to join them. Supposedly, he said that little college settlement near Island City was really the bad guys. If you can believe him, they were the ones manufacturing some sort of weaponized version of the zombie virus. It supposedly even takes down the immune if you can take his word for anything. And I guess, according to those who were present for some or all of the doc’s questioning, he was beyond being able to lie. She did a real number on him.”
I took this in and mulled it over the rest of my time out. Morris tried to talk to me some more, but I was not much for conversation. If all of this was true, then why would Billy lead a team out to ambush our escorts? Why not let them show up, bring them in and see what they had to say? Was there more to what they discovered in the interrogation that had not been leaked?
We reached our marker and awaited the group. The rest of the night, I walked sort of off to myself. Jim tried to come chat with me once, but I told him I wasn’t in the mood to talk.
One of my favorite things to do to pass time is to read. I love stories that take me away from everything. We don’t have a lot of books, and I have probably read all the ones that we do have at least a dozen times each. The best part about books (or any story for that matter) is that things might seem bleak and fuzzy in the beginning, but they always clear up by the time you reach the end. I have found that life is nothing like that in any way, shape, or form. More often than not, you don’t get any answers; just more questions. I was hoping that this was not going to be one of those times where I was left wondering.
***
When we reached the first picket of sentries, I was actually surprised to discover Kayla walking the ridge. I guess she earned her place after that last run. If seeing her out on roving patrol was a surprise, it did not hold a candle to what happened the moment she spotted us.
“Thalia!” the girl squealed loud enough to bring any zombie for five miles heading our direction. If that wasn’t odd enough, she bounded down the hill and grabbed me in a very uncomfortable hug.
“Hey, Kayla,” I said once she pulled back to reveal that she had honest-to-goodness tears rolling down her cheeks.
“I thought that we would never see you again,” she gushed.
“Surprise!” I said meekly, throwing my hands up for emphasis.
We moved on and eventually arrived at the gates. That was where I discovered my next shock. The place was a beehive of activity. People were loading carts, horses, mules, and anything that could carry anything with as much stuff as possible.
“Umm…” I turned to Paula, but she just moved past me like I wasn’t even there. When I spun to Billy, he was simply gone!
I looked over to Jim and he made the mistake of meeting my gaze. I stormed over to him, a terrible feeling in my gut.
“What is going on?” I demanded.
“Listen, cupcake, I hate to—” he began, but was interrupted.
“Thalia!” I turned to see Melissa and Stevie running for me.
Stevie was actually falling behind as Melissa came with a speed I did not know she possessed. She hit me full force, her arms throwing themselves around me and sweeping me into the biggest hug I can ever recall receiving from the woman. A second later, Stevie caught up and it was now a Thalia sandwich.
I struggled with this encounter. Yes, I was happy to see them both; thrilled to be perfectly honest. But I had something else on my mind. Apparently it would have to wait, because coming for us on a beeline, as people cleared a path to avoid being run over, was Dr. Zahn.
“Young lady, you are a sight for sore eyes,” the doctor said with more emotion than I think I had ever seen from her in my entire life (except anger, I’d seen the doc pissed plenty of times over the years).
“And I am glad to see all of you,” I finally said once I was able to get free of Melissa’s grip. “What is going on?”
“We’re moving!” Stevie blurted.
I caught the scowl on Dr. Zahn’s face. That made no sense to me. Not that any of this did. Why would everybody agree to just pack and leave? This was our home. We had been here for most of my life. We had a good thing here.
“What about Jackson?” I asked, my voice a bit choked up as the realization of a very unpleasant possibility hit me in the gut.
“Excuse me?” Dr. Zahn seemed genuinely perplexed.
I wriggled free of all the arms trying to wrap around me. Suddenly they felt suffocating. I pulled away and faced Melissa, Stevie, and Dr. Zahn.
“What are we going to do about Jackson? He is prisoner back at that woman’s camp,” I said very slowly, making a point to try and watch everybody’s face at once for some sense of a reaction.
“I have no idea what you are talking about,” Dr. Zahn finally said.
I saw her look past my shoulder. I turned to see Jim, Billy, and Paula heading for the cabin. They were ducking out of this madness and heading for the community’s council chambers. I took off after them at a sprint.
I reached the big porch and took a deep breath before I entered. I did not want to come across like a child. I wanted to be taken seriously. I would ask direct questions and expect direct answers.
When I walked into the open chamber, I was met by three heads that turned to face me all at once. Of the three, one of them looked as guilty as Stevie that one time when he got caught with an entire loaf of fresh pumpkin bread that Melissa had just baked.
“What are we doing about Jackson?” I asked as I came up the aisle.
Billy was seated on the edge of the little stage, his feet actually touching the floor where my own would be a good foot off the ground. Paula was standing beside him, and Jim had spun one of the chairs around backwards and had straddled it.
“Thalia,” Billy began, but I shook my head.
“Don’t you dare say what I think you are gonna say!”
“He knew this going into the mission,” Paula whispered. Only, it wasn’t a whisper of sadness or anything like that; instead, she seemed to almost be warning me off like I was out of line.
“Every single time you leave the walls, you run that risk,” Billy added, only minus the veiled warning or threat I thought I was hearing from Paula.
“So we leave him to die?” I exploded. “What if I was still there?”
“Then it would be the same,” Paula said flatly, her voice now as emotionless as I’d ever heard it. “We have to think of the community. One person does not merit risking several lives.”
I turned to Jim. He was only able to hold my glare for a second or two before he looked at the floor. “It’s the truth, cupcake,” he said sadly. “Any one of us would knowingly give our lives for the better and greater good of the rest. Jackson would say the same to you if it were me left behind and he somehow managed to end up free from that place.”
“But there has to be something—” I started, only, the tears had sent a signal to my throat and closed it off, strangling my words.
“You saw how many of them there are,” Jim said sadly. “We don’t stand a chance if we try and fight them.”
“But they wanted us on their side!”
“That is one person’s word under duress. He could be lying. We do no
t have the luxury of trusting him,” Billy said, his lips pressed tight in a grim expression of finality.
I looked from one to the other and saw it in their eyes. The choice had been made. Paula had obviously lied to me back at the ambush to shut me up. She knew already that Platypus Creek was packing and preparing to leave.
“Maybe if you hadn’t killed the escorts, then maybe we could have spoken to Suzi and come to terms,” I insisted.
“After what she did to that guy Hunter, do you really think that true for even a moment?” Jim asked, his head finally coming up as he now found the strength or courage to meet my gaze.
I stared back at him. A part of my brain was telling me that he was exactly right. Not to mention, how could I think for a moment that we could ever be friends with a person like that and not spend the rest of our lives sleeping with one eye open?
Still, my brain was in no mood to think rationally. I was angry, hurt, and confused. I was tired of being lied to by everybody. Was that just the way of the world once you became an adult? Lie, lie, lie, and lie some more?
I wanted to scream. I wanted to yell and throw a fit. More importantly, I wanted to have things back the way they were before I went off on that stupid field run.
I turned and left. I almost thought that one of them might call me back or come after me, but none of them did. I stood outside and looked at people jogging one way or another. And while there was certainly a lot of urgency, the one thing I didn’t see was panic.
“Are you going to be okay?” a voice said from my left.
I turned to see Cynthia Bird coming up the path. Sunshine was beside her and both women looked like they had been up for about a week straight without any sleep.
“How can anybody ever say yes to that question?” I said, allowing my tears to finally escape my eyes.
“I’m just glad that you made it back,” Sunshine said, closing the distance and putting an arm around me.
“Yeah, Jim and I are the lucky ones, right?”
“I’d heard that Mister Sagar made it back as well. Not Jackson, though?” Cynthia joined us.
“He is being sacrificed for some imaginary greater good.” I made no effort to hide my anger and bitterness.
“That is the way of things now,” Cynthia said, and I saw a sadness cross her face that made me pause. “Did I ever tell you how I lost my husband?”
I shook my head.
“We had been on the road for a while. We’d recently lost Xander’s mom and dad. It was just the three of us on our own and we were pretty beat up. Glenn, my husband, he was probably in the best shape between he and I and so he did almost all of the hunting and foraging as we headed north towards a settlement that we’d heard of…this one as it would turn out.
“To make a long story short, we got to this river. Glenn had to cross it with a rope so that we could get to the other side with the baby. We’d been outrunning this group of raiders for almost a week and felt that getting across that river would be our only chance as they were gaining ground at a scary clip. The thing is, Glenn got this whole thing hooked up and then, once we were across, he cut the rope. He said that he would lead the people chasing us in another direction for a while so that Xander and I could get a good distance ahead. He promised that he would catch up to us eventually, but he made me promise to keep going until I reached the settlement we had heard was a safe place. I never saw him again.”
I sat there for a minute and tried to see how this matched up to what we were doing with Jackson. It wasn’t that I was stupid, but it sounded to me like Cynthia’s husband had made an actual choice. We were making Jackson’s choice for him.
“I know it’s tough, Thalia,” Sunshine said, her arm around my shoulders as she started to lead me back to my home. “But you have to trust that this is the right choice. Jackson would probably say those very words if he were standing right here with us.”
I let her lead me away. I was tired. Everything was blurring together into one big lump. I was having a very difficult time sorting out one part of this mess from the other. The loss of Island City; Hunter being turned into a zombie by Suzi; Jim pretending to be gimpy and then supposedly sneaking out of the camp and sending for help.
And through it all, my mind returned to Jackson. What terrible fate would we be consigning him to by just abandoning him like this?
Somehow, I found myself walking through the door to the apartment I shared with Stevie and Melissa. They both welcomed me home again with almost as much excitement as they had when I’d first walked through the gates. There were crates stacked by the door. I saw that my stuff had somehow been packed as if they fully expected me to return.
I tried to smile as Melissa sat us down to dinner. Only, I couldn’t taste a thing. I forced myself to be pleasant as Stevie made it a point to try and catch me up on every single thing that had happened in my absence.
When dinner was at its merciful end, I excused myself and went in to bed. I waved a hand to acknowledge that I understood we would be leaving with the first caravan tomorrow. I heard Stevie ask if I was okay and Melissa’s attempt to give him some sort of soothing answer stating that I was fine, but just tired.
I wasn’t fine.
I lay down; certain that I would fall into a fitful sleep plagued with nightmares about Jackson being turned into a zombie. That was only partly true. I did fall asleep eventually. But when my eyes opened, it was still dark and I did not recall one single nightmare. I felt numb.
When I got up and walked into the living room, I already knew what I was going to do. I grabbed a piece of paper and jotted a note. It was simple and to the point. It read: I can’t leave Jackson like this. I am sorry.
I slipped into my field gear and walked out into the darkness.
10
Vignettes LXIV
Juan jerked his weapon free, his eyes frantically seeking his daughters who had suddenly vanished from sight. A handful of seconds later, he had his answer. Both girls sprang up from seemingly out of nowhere. Each had her knobbed, baseball bat-like club in her hands.
Della and Denita rushed in, each taking down one of the deader wolves as the confused creatures turned to face this new stimulus. Juan could only watch in amazement. It had been sort of impressive to see his little seven-year-old girls take down a small pack of these horrors.
“Bad dog!” Denita scolded as she dodged a gore-crusted maw that was just a heartbeat too slow to snap shut on its intended target of the girl’s ankle. It was rewarded with a smashing blow to the back of the head.
Before he realized it, the little battle was over and his daughters turned with proud smiles plastered in their faces. Each was grinning so wide that Juan almost thought the tops of their heads would fall off if a sudden breeze were to whip up right about now.
“You learned all of this from Gerald?” he asked once he was able to speak without sounding like he was absolutely furious.
“Yes, Papi,” the girls crowed in unison.
“Gerald said he was making us lean, mean fightin’ machines,” Denita added, her hands covering her mouth as she started to giggle.
Juan had to admit that he was extremely impressed. What he’d just witnessed showed more skills than he’d observed in grown men; much less a pair of seven-year-old girls. His only hang-up came in the fact that it felt like the man had taught them the skills without teaching them anything remotely resembling caution. It was like teaching a child to shoot a gun, but then skipping the part about how they are holding a dangerous weapon and should not ever think of it as a toy.
What he’d just seen from his daughters was a modern day version of a game; at least that is how they acted. He needed to put this right, but he wanted to do it in a way that would not have them reluctant to use their newly discovered talent. His mind easily went to a scenario where his scolding would leave them just standing there as a deader strolled up and took a bite out of one or both of his daughters.
“Okay, I want you two to listen to me,”
Juan said patting a spot to either side of where he sat, indicating with a nod that the girls come sit beside him. “I want to tell you both how proud I am of each of you. You did very well. However, I want to make it clear that this is not a game.”
“But Gerald said—” Denita began.
“I don’t care…” Juan snapped, then he reigned himself in and started over in a much calmer tone. “I don’t care what Gerald said. He isn’t your papi. I am telling you that this is serious stuff. You should be proud of what you can do, but the moment that you don’t take this serious, that is the moment that one of those deaders takes a bite out of you.”
The two girls sat silent for as moment. Each of them kept looking at the other. Juan had that vibe like they were doing one of those creepy twin things from the movies where they were communicating telepathically or something. At last, Della broke her sister’s gaze and looked up at Juan with her large dark eyes.
“Can I tell you one thing that Gerald said, Papi?” the girl asked innocently.
With a sigh, Juan nodded his head in agreement. He noticed Della shoot a worried look at Denita before she spoke.
“Gerald said that Denita didn’t need to be ascared of the deaders. That it was just like a game of tag. She didn’t want to play at first, but when he showed her how easy it was to win, she started to play.”
“And he said I am very good at it,” Denita whispered.
Juan was struck speechless. Apparently Gerald had learned a great deal about the girls while he’d been out of commission. He wanted to say something to refute the man’s claims, but then he saw how the man had turned Denita’s reluctance and closed off personality into something he could work with.
“You are very good at it, hija,” Juan said softly, a smile on his face. “I was very proud of you both. But I want you to make me a promise.”
The girls both scooted close, their heads tilted up at him expectantly. In that instant, Juan saw every single detail of Mackenzie’s beauty in their little faces. He recalled how he had been ready to give up that day when his horse had fallen and he thought that the end was near. He made a quick vow to himself to do everything in his power to live a long life and be there for his girls.
