by David Rogers
“That’s why it’s called Nah-Ah.” Jessica told her daughter. “The point is to be sneaky.”
“Oh.”
“Your turn.” Jessica reminded her. “Nines.”
“Uh . . . one nine.”
“Nah-Ah.” Austin said before Candice had barely even gotten the card out of her hand.
“What?” she asked in surprise.
“Nah-Ah.” he repeated. “Show it.”
Candice turned the card around to show it was a three, looking at him. “How’d you know?”
“I’ve got my ways.” he grinned. “Have to be sneakier than that.” He waggled his eyebrows at her, then pulled two cards from his hand without seeming to look at them. “Two eights.”
“Nah-Ah.” Jessica said.
He switched his grin to her. “Are you sure?”
“Let’s find out.” she said, pausing her card sorting to turn his pair over.
“All yours.” he said as the two eights were revealed.
“Very sneaky.” Candice observed so matter-of-factly Jessica blinked. “Wow mom, you’ve got a lot of cards now.”
“Yup, but that just makes it easier to get rid of them.” Jessica said as Austin chuckled. “Three sevens.”
Candice opened her mouth, then hesitated.
“Yes?” Jessica asked innocently.
“Nothing.” Candice decided. She looked at her cards and picked two out. “Two sixes.”
“Two fives.” Austin said, flicking a pair of his own out like a Vegas dealer before picking up his beer again. They landed right on the discard pile.
“One fou—” Jessica started to say, but Candice spoke quickly.
“Wait!”
“There something you want to say?” Austin asked, giving her his blank face.
Candice studied him for a long moment, looked at her cards, then back up at him. “Nah-Ah.”
Austin let a little amusement leak into his expression. “Nah-Ah, or Nah-Ah you don’t have anything to say?”
Candice leaned forward and flipped the cards. A five and a six were revealed, and Candice dropped half her cards as she clapped delightedly. “I got you!”
“Guess I’ll have to be sneakier.” Austin sighed melodramatically as he collected the discard pile.
Candice looked at her mother. “Uh oh.”
The rest of the game only took another twenty minutes. Jessica found she just had to dump a little in order to ensure Candice was in a good position to win. She was unsurprised that Austin seemed to be pursuing the same goal without her even having to hint to him. He managed to get caught lying every time his hand count went below seven cards, while Jessica hovered unobtrusively between ten and twenty until Candice was able to empty her hand without noticing the adults’ strategy.
The second game lasted most of an hour, and in the end Jessica was enjoying herself so much she lost much of her ability to lie convincingly. Now that he seemed sure Candice had gotten the hang of it, Austin began to play more expertly. He would lay something outrageous, like four jacks, which would turn out to be true. Then, as cards began to accumulate in Jessica’s and Candice’s hands, he began dropping singles that Jessica finally started calling him on out of simple self-preservation.
Candice caught on to that tactic, and soon mother and daughter both were challenging nearly everything he played as he bounced around a hand count of five to ten cards. Then he started challenging back, and the discard pile stayed mostly empty as the three of them shuffled cards back and forth. This went on for quite a while before the three of them began to back off somewhat, and the discard pile slowly built to dangerous levels.
A telling blow was finally landed when Candice called Austin on a pair of twos. He went from three cards to well over half the deck and shook his head ruefully as Candice cheered.
“I see you’re getting better at this.” he remarked as he picked everything up.
“I like this game.” Candice declared.
“So do I.” he winked at her. “It’s like practice for poker.”
“What’s poker?”
Austin grinned. “It’s a little like Nah-Ah, except when you’re wrong you have to pay money.”
Candice wrinkled her nose. “That doesn’t sound like much fun.”
“Depends on who you’re playing against.”
“Well, I wouldn’t want to play poker against you. You’re very sneaky.”
“Look who’s an expert now.” Jessica teased gently.
“Austin’s too good.” Candice protested. “He hardly does anything at all when he lies. Just a little bit, sometimes, but it’s hard to figure out.”
“Oh?” Austin inquired as he finished arranging his cards and cocked an eyebrow at her.
“Yes.” the girl nodded. “Mom is pretty good, but she’s not as good as you.”
“How can you tell when to catch me?” Jessica asked curiously.
“Your voice does a thing.”
“My voice does a thing?” she chuckled.
“Yes.” Candice nodded again. “It goes a little flatter, and you hesitate a little when you pick the cards out.”
“I see.” Jessica said, exchanging a merry look of surprise with Austin, who just gave her a grin.
“Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.” Candice confided.
Austin burst out laughing as Jessica shook her head ruefully. “Busted by my own child.”
The end of the game came shortly after that, and Jessica collected the cards up as Candice yawned. “I think it’s time for bed.”
“Awww.”
“None of that. We can play some more tomorrow. “Go take a shower and change your clothes.”
“I’m not that tired.”
“Scoot. Bedtime.”
Candice obediently rose and disappeared into the bedroom. Jessica squared the cards into a deck, taking her time until she heard the bathroom door close. “Has anyone told you lately what a good guy you are?” she asked Austin.
“No, not recently.” he admitted.
“Well, you are.” she said, holding the deck out to him.
“Keep it, I’ve got two more tucked away for a rainy day.”
“There it is again.”
He picked up his beer, the third that he’d been nursing for most of the last game, and shrugged lightly. “It’s nothing. My brother’s wife ran a daycare out of her house. I guess I got used to how to deal with kids, on my visits.”
“Where was this?”
“California.” Austin said as he leaned back in the chair. “He hated it around here. Said it was hickville and he needed some proper civilization.”
“Georgia isn’t that bad.”
“No, it isn’t. But he wasn’t interested. Plus he’s . . . was, attached to the 11th ACR at Fort Irwin out there, so it wasn’t like I could talk him around.”
Jessica nodded soberly. “No hope?”
Austin tipped his beer back, then put the can down on the cooler next to his chair and shrugged again. “Not really. They deployed into Los Angeles early Saturday morning. That was the last I heard from him. You heard Vanessa yesterday.”
“Yeah.”
“I wonder about my dad a little, but I don’t think there’s much hope for him either.”
“Where does he live?”
“Kansas. He moved there after my mom died.”
Jessica thought back to what she’d seen on the news, and what Vanessa had turned up. “Kansas didn’t get hit all that hard did it?”
“Hard to say. The biggest city there is about the size of Macon, and the others on the notable list get small pretty quick. So I like to think he might be okay, but I’ve called and left messages and he hasn’t returned any of them.”
“It doesn’t rule it out.” she said quietly.
“Maybe not, but I’m not holding my breath.” Jessica wasn’t sure what to say, but he just sighed after a moment. “He was ex-Army, and I’ll bet anything he fell all over himself to volunteer when the President called for all tra
ined bodies to sign up Friday night. Seeing how that went . . .” He fell silent.
“I’m sorry.”
“Lot of that going around.” he sighed again.
“I didn’t mean to . . . I shouldn’t have asked.” Jessica said awkwardly as she slid the cards into the box and laid them on the table.
“It’s fine.”
“No, I should know better.” Jessica said gently. “Especially after everything Candice and I have been through.”
“Can’t learn if you don’t ask.”
“Some things need to be left alone.”
“It’s fine.” he repeated. “There are no stupid questions, just stupid people.”
Jessica found her lips quirking into a half smile. “That’s kind of rude.”
“True though.” he grinned. “Oh the stories I could tell you.”
“I think I’ve got at least a few that might match anything you’ve got.”
“Somehow, knowing you worked in a doctor’s office, I believe that.”
“Dennis isn’t that bad.”
“No, I was thinking about the patients though.”
“They’re just scared.” she shrugged. “They come in and are facing a serious issue, sometimes a life threatening one, and they get scared. When people get scared . . .” she trailed off.
“Yeah.” he agreed. “Lot of that going around too.”
Jessica considered her thoughts for a few seconds, then told herself she didn’t have a choice. “I need to ask you something.”
“Oh boy.”
“What?”
“I’ve got a sort of mental bet going with myself.” he replied. “I’ve got it narrowed down to one of two different questions.”
“You’re really something, you know that?” she retorted, but couldn’t help but smiling as she did.
“One of a kind.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.” he said, resolving his face into a more attentive expression. “Ask away.”
“Do you trust Tyler?”
He blinked at her, and she saw his eyes narrow just a touch. “Trust him how?”
“To make the right decisions around here.”
He sighed. “Damnit. I was really hoping it’d be the other question.”
“Austin, I’m serious.” she insisted.
“I know.” He gazed out into the early evening out beyond the balcony glass for a few moments, then looked at her. His mouth opened, then shut as he hesitated, and finally he shrugged. “Maybe.”
Jessica felt something inside her lurch, but she wasn’t completely surprised. In fact, she was relieved to hear him say it. “That’s what I was afraid of.”
“He’s got a lot on his plate.” Austin said quietly. “We all do.”
“That’s why I need to know.”
“You already knew, didn’t you?”
Now it was her turn to hesitate, but she nodded after only a brief interval. “I’m . . . look, I’m not saying I don’t . . . I’m just not sure if he’s really envisioning what’s happening here as a group thing.” Austin cocked his head at her silently, and she resisted the urge to twist her hands. “He’s smart, and he’s clearly interested in building this place up as a safe one, but I just wonder who he’ll choose if it comes down to the wire.”
Austin frowned, but there was recognition in his eyes. Recognition and a lack of surprise. “You picked up on that did you?”
“You’re the one who said I was asking the right questions.”
He rolled his head around on his neck a few times, then leaned forward. “Tyler Morris is a good guy.” he said slowly, clearly assembling his thoughts carefully. “But he’s not really someone I’d say is used to working with a team.”
“He’s used to being in charge.”
“Yes he is. But in a different sense than how I usually envision leadership.” Austin said, clearly uncomfortable.
“I’m not trying to make this hard for you.” she said quietly.
“I know. And I know exactly why you’re asking.”
“I don’t have a choice. I have to ask these questions.”
“I know.” he repeated. “As long as we don’t end up stuck in the middle of something like we were facing back in Atlanta, we could do a lot worse than Tyler.”
Jessica firmly suppressed the urge to shiver against the chill that rippled through her as she thought of how bad things had been in Atlanta. “And what starts happening if it does?”
“It’ll depend.” Austin said, scrubbing his fingers across his short-cut hair in frustration.
“I can’t take that kind of chance.”
“I know, and I don’t blame you. But Jessica, I gotta tell you, I’m not the guy who’ll—”
“That’s not what I’m getting at.” she interrupted quickly. “It’s not.” she added as he gave her a steady look.
“Then what?”
Jessica inhaled and made herself let it out slowly, trying to take solace from the simple rush of air in and out. “If things do get that bad, then I will not be riding everything down in flames with him.” He kept looking at her, and she sighed again. “What I’m afraid of is Tyler isn’t above using others to do exactly that, if he thinks it’ll work out for him.”
“Maybe it won’t come to that.”
“Maybe’s not good enough. I can’t go with maybe.”
“We’re okay so far.”
“But if okay starts turning south, I’ll have a decision to make.”
“I know. And I understand.”
Jessica searched his face, trying to keep the urgent need to plead with him off hers and out of her voice. Candice’s question in the infirmary had reminded Jessica she had sort of collapsed her focus a little since joining the Morris group. At no point had she lost sight of the need to keep Candice safe and protected, but she’d allowed her concern over her own injury, on the security of the group and its activities, to keep her from recognizing the stark truth she needed to.
She couldn’t guarantee something wouldn’t happened to her. Though she was willing to die for Candice without a second’s thought, that’s what she’d be doing if it came to that; dying. If that happened, she needed to have some sort of plan in place for Candice after her daughter lost her mother. Right now Jessica didn’t have one, and it scared her worse than the thought of dying.
It absolutely terrified her.
The best solution she could figure out at the moment was to ensure others might be willing to take her place as her daughter’s protector. And the only possible candidate she trusted was Austin.
“If I make that decision, what’s yours going to be?” She almost, almost, hated to have to ask, but she had to. She had no choice.
Austin sat back, his face suddenly weary. She waited silently, anxiously, as he gazed out the balcony doors. Finally he shrugged. “I don’t know.”
* * * * *
Darryl
“I don’t know Bobo, this just look like a long fucking hole with dirt and rocks in it to me.” Joker said as he leaned on a shovel.
“That cause you ain’t got no fucking clue what you on about.” Bobo said.
“As usual.” Spider laughed.
“Hey fuck you bro.” Joker shot back, though Darryl noted he made sure to turn his head to Spider so Bobo wouldn’t think the comment was directed at him. Bobo had always held a position of respect as the founder of the Dogz, but since the weekend he was being treated with more care than usual.
“Joker mouthing off as usual, but I still don’t get it.” Perv said.
Bobo pointed at the trench that had been scooped out near the lake. The Home Depot they’d been leaning on ever since the zombies started eating people had provided the materials Bobo had prescribed for the filter system. Hauling all of it had been more heavy, sweaty work; made all the more nerve racking by the exposure everyone felt venturing out to the dark store. But the flatbed trucks had hauled the material back without a problem, and they’d encountered no wandering zombies wh
ile they were heaving everything up on the trucks.
Now the plastic sacks of sand and rock were all empty, their contents having been dumped into the trench under Bobo’s direction. Sand had been laid down near the lake side of the trench, fine grained playground sand nearest the lake with coarser sand behind that. Then three different sizes of rocks in distinct layers as the trench continued away from the water. The whole thing was dug at an angle, and the end was a big hole four foot around and about six feet deep; lined with plastic sheeting that had been laboriously fused with heat to ensure the joins between the pieces were water tight.
“Water come in from the lake and have to get through all the sand and rocks before it get into the hole. By the time it do that, all the crap floating around in it been picked off by the trench, and what go into the hole clean.”
“Still don’t make no sense.” Joker said.
“It ain’t gotta make sense to work.” Bobo grinned. “How you think people get clean water before modern times?”
“This gonna be clean?”
“Clean enough. Only real problem gonna be hauling it up the hill.” Bobo gestured at the clubhouse, which sat on a gentle grade above the lake. “For now we got all them bottles and gallon jugs we picked up, so we can run them down and back up in a truck, but we might be down to doing it on foot at some point.”
“That’s gonna suck.” Goat remarked. Darryl agreed; liquids got heavy real quick. He’d thrown around enough barrels and cans of gas in the past few days to have learned that.
“Yeah, won’t be nothing but work, but water ain’t something we can do without. Come on Dogz, grab them shovels and let’s knock out the last bit.”
Darryl lifted one of the shovels and stepped forward with the others. The backhoe was working on the fence, but it had scooped out the trench and hole before trundling up to start on the ‘moat’. The truck and trailer that had brought the construction machine over sat on the road next to the lake to the north, out of the way but at hand in case they thought of something else they could do with it.
All that remained for Bobo’s filter trench was to dig out the last couple of feet between the lake so the water could start flowing. Starting on the trench side, the Dogz began breaking the soft clay up and shoveling it aside. It only took a couple of minutes before the water rushed in. Darryl and the others stepped out of the trench and continued shoveling the remaining soil as the trench started filling. When they had the entire width cleared all the way to the lake, Joker shook his head.
