by Deyo, Jason
With a crack of thunder Naomi shot up from her dream. She felt the urge to use the bathroom, but was hesitant because of the rain. Eric rolled over and opened his eyes and saw she was sitting up.
“You alright?” He asked.
“Yeah the thunder woke me. I think I should use the bathroom though before this gets worse.” She responded and pointed to the sky.
“I think that might be a good idea.” He said and thought he could make out a smirk of a smile while she slipped her shoes on.
The rain was beginning to beat faster on the wooden roof and Eric could feel the scaffolding shake and could hear the sound of her feet travel down the metal ladder. The dirt paths were beginning to fill with mud and her shoe sank deep into a puddle when she stepped off the ladder. Eric could hear the sound of her cursing, but could not make out what she was saying. He looked out the plastic sheeting that acted as a window and watched the dark figure run to the make shift porta potties.
She ran to the main road trying to avoid the gathering puddles by jumping from dry spot to dry spot. Naomi saw two people throwing a tarp over one of the tents in the circles and as she watched the two men she recognized one of the men as Michael. Except this time instead of the clean cut and well dressed teenager, he was now wet from the rain and covered in mud from the duties he had been performing. Michael met her stare and watched her as she got to the main road and jogged up it.
Eric was about to lay back down when he saw the two dark figures move behind her after she ran past.
The bathroom area of the village had a battery powered lantern hanging on a stick next to each one of the porta potties. Naomi grabbed it, turned it on and stepped into the blue temporary bathroom facility. She turned and locked the door and just as she unbuttoned her pants, something hit the plastic side of the bathroom causing it to shake.
“Hello Ms. Naomi.” A young voice traveled through the screened in section of the plastic enclosure.
Naomi looked up to the screen and could see the top of a person’s head and eyes peering in. She immediately recognized the eyes as Jeremy and the voice of Michael.
“Oh, I can see you.” Jeremy said as if he was overly excited about seeing her in the bathroom.
Naomi unlocked the door and tried to push it open, but it was met with resistance keeping her trapped. “Let me out you fucking red neck.”
“That’s not very nice for a teacher to say, now is it? I was always told if you don’t have nothing nice to say, you shouldn’t say nothing at all.” Jeremy said from the other side of the door.
“What kind of math are you going to do now? A guy on the other side holding the door closed and you trying to push it open. I don’t see it happening, but maybe if I give you a pen and paper you could figure it out. Oh how about this one; at what angle do I need to push this over until you get covered in shit?” Michael said mockingly and then hit the side of the plastic bathroom causing it to shake again.
Naomi heard the sound of a loud yell and then the door flew open as she pressed against it. The door was stopped short again, but not from someone pressing against it, but because she had hit someone with the door.
Eric had ran down the street and witnessed Jeremy, dressed in a beat up holey red plaid jacket, pressing hard against the door and he could only assume Naomi was on the other side. He jumped and kicked Jeremy as hard as he could in the ribs and then the door flew open and hit him on his side.
Naomi came out angry and fuming. Michael looked at Eric and no longer was he neat and clean, but now cold, wet and dirty with a black Carhart coat on. He moved to Eric and took a wild swing. Eric easily stepped to the side and took his knee to the angry delinquent’s thigh just above the knee. This dropped him to that very same knee and then he kicked his other leg out from under him sending him face first into the growing mud puddles.
Jeremy came running back after he regained his composure. Eric prepared himself and took a step back. Jeremy came lunging at him with a wild right handed haymaker. Eric stepped inside of him and threw a straight right punch that connected squarely on his nose. Once again he fell backwards into the mud. He paused, standing between his fallen opponents, waiting to see if either one was going to get up, but neither one did.
“Do you still have to go?” He asked calmly to Naomi who stood shocked.
She didn’t answer for a few seconds and then replied. “Yeah.”
“I’ll stay out here.”
**********
News of last night’s events didn’t take long to spread throughout the village and just about everyone knew before breakfast was served. Women came to Naomi wanting to know in detail what happened and hoped their husbands or men would do the same in that situation, and the men came to Eric wanting to know what it was like to finally shut Jeremy’s loud mouth. Instantly over night Sam and Drew became the most popular kids in the village and the way they found out was from the children telling them what happened.
The main road was wet from last night’s rain and Naomi took caution when traveling down the hill to the front of her class. There was someone waiting for her when she got to the stage, but did not walk from behind the set of black boards until she arrived.
“Hi.” He said startling Naomi. A very stout and slightly taller than Naomi, man made himself known. By the way he was dressed she assumed he was the adopted father of Michael. He had short dark hair and wore a very clean dark blue jacket that perfectly matched his clean blue jeans.
“Hello,” She responded nicely, but did not like his approach. “Can I help you?” She backed away from him.
“I want you to take my son back into your class.” This was not a request, but a demand.
“I don’t have any control over that. He is going to have to want to come back, one, and he needs to talk to Elijah. He’s the one who took him out of my class.”
“Just because he sees things differently is no reason to kick him out. He should not be punished because he has a different view point. You’re not even a real teacher, so you don’t know how to handle kids.” The man began to slightly raise his voice.
“Once again sir, I did not kick him out and I am more than qualified to take care of any child; I have two of my own. And he needs to talk with Elijah before I let him come back and then even if Elijah allows him to attend school, if I don’t believe he actually wants to be in this class, I will send him back.” She snapped.
“You obviously don’t know who I am.”
“You obviously think I give a shit.” Naomi fired back.
“I run my own team. We are the best scavenger team this village has and I’m sure if it came down to losing me and my team or getting rid of some nigger, you would be run out.”
“Get the fuck out of my class room!” Naomi screamed and pushed him into the chalk board he hid behind.
“And tell your boyfriend if I ever see him I’m going to fuck him up too for hitting my boy.” He said quickly and began walking away. By Naomi raising her voice and pushing him many people passing by stopped and looked down on the class.
“You know where he is. Go tell him yourself you coward!” Due to the events of last night many people began to whisper amongst themselves, as Michaels father began to feel increasingly more uncomfortable and picked up his pace, leaving the class.
The teenagers sat very interested in everything, but the lesson plan. Naomi wrote the pages she read for today’s lesson plan on the chalk board and said, “Read these pages and then do the exercise at the end of the chapter.” She sat for a while staring off into the distance, thinking about last night and this morning. She continued to day dream and then she stood up, “Continue reading, I’ll be back in a second.” And then she ran off, away from the class room.
**********
“You know if we could get these to cover the wheels we might actually be able to stop any more undead from getting caught in them again.” Eric was holding up a make shift shield that covered the entire wheel well of the red truck trying not to kneel in
the fresh mud from last nights rain. He was pressing it up against the frame of the truck for Mike to see what he could do as far as welding it or creating some other form of attachment.
“You should really learn to control your woman.” Michael’s father said as he passed Jay’s section of the motor pull addressing Eric, but neither Eric nor Mike could make out what he said. It was very common for the other group to walk through their section of the motor pool because theirs was the closest to the main road. Most of the time, as they walked through, the common courtesy of a “good morning”, or “hello” was given, because there had never been any real controversy between the groups other than small gambling debts or friendly competition.
Mike looked down at him quizzically, “What he say?”
“Not sure.” He stood up and screamed to him, “What?”
“You heard me. Fuck you.” He hollered back as he walked into the other motor pools building just passed theirs.
Mike and Eric looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders. “Must be having a bad day?” Eric said.
“It’s probably because you beat up his kid last night.” Mike said
Eric’s eyes got wide. “Oh is that him? I knew he was in the other pool, but didn’t know who it was. I didn’t hurt him bad and actually I never laid a hand on him.” He laughed a little. “What’s that guy’s name anyway?”
“John I think? Something like that. I think they call him Johnny?”
They continued to discuss the ideas of the wheel well cover and then Jay opened one of the sides to the double door to the motor pool. He had a smoke in his mouth and shook the pack making the filtered end of the cigarettes protrude from the box. He held the cigarette box out as an offering and Eric took one, but Mike refused.
“When did you get these?” Eric said as he leaned into Jay lighting it and then inhaling deeply. The warmth in his lungs made him want to cough, but then his old habit took over and relaxation washed over him.
“I save these for special occasions and last night was a good one, so I can indulge a little with everyone.” He said smiling.
“Do you have to stick your dick in everything that moves here?” Mike said.
“Look if it’s going to come my way and I don’t have to work too hard for it, then…” He was stopped short in his sentence due to Naomi storming down the main street toward them. “I think you might have fucked up.” He said to Eric and then pulled Mike back from him creating a wide berth, so Naomi could enter the circle.
“Have you seen Mike’s father?” She asked Eric loudly and out of breath.
“Yeah a few seconds ago.”
“He said he was going to fuck you up.”
“Really? He mumbled something, but we couldn’t make out what he said.” Eric said and Mike nodded his head in agreement.
“He walked up on me first thing this morning, making all kinds of demands, calling me all kinds of Nigger this and all kinds of threats. He threatened you and made a big scene this morning right before class. He came at me right before class started when he knew no one was going to be around.” Naomi was very worked up and her eyes were glassy with frustration.
“Sounds to me like you got to do what you got to do.” Jay said immediately after her rant.
Eric took another drag from his smoke, snuffed it out on the truck and then gently placed it on the dash inside the vehicle for safe keeping. He pulled his pants up and quickly walked toward the other scavengers building with Jay and Mike following.
Joey had overheard the whole story and began following. He had seen two other members of their group showing up late for work and hollered for them to follow. Shawn and Brian were two new members of the village that joined Jay’s crew. Both of them were very large men and their physical prowess had been proven on many runs against the undead. Even though the morning air was chilly, both of them showed up in tight t shirts showing their muscular definition. Neither knew what was going on, but seeing the speed and attitude in which their crew was moving, made them eagerly join the march.
Eric was the first to open the door. Six men sat at a round table directly in front of the door. With a quick scan, Eric quickly recognized Johnny sitting on a metal chair. The other men sitting at the table were beginning to stand not sure exactly what was going on, but Johnny had anticipated this.
In a few steps Eric ran past three of Johnnies men with his fist clenched and rage boiling in him. John was used to intimidating people with his size and loud voice and as Eric ran to him he started demanding them to get out, in his meanest tough guy voice and his angriest most intimidating look. Eric was not buying it and lunged at him. He kicked his chair forcing John to spread his legs and flail his arms to maintain his balance and then Eric grabbed a hand full of clean groomed hair. He pulled his head back over the metal chair and came down on his face hammer fisting his nose.
John fell back over his metal fold up chair, as the barrage of fists rained down on whatever they could connect with. Johnny’s men stood and began to make moves, but Jay and his guys spread out in the room and screamed for them not to touch them and with sheer confusion and shock they all stood back and watched.
“This is their fight!” Jay screamed. Johnny’s men started to move around the table until Jay pulled a knife from his pocket. “No one will jump in!” He demanded and they all stopped.
John spun when he hit the ground and tried to move at him, but Eric controlled his movements by the hair on top of his head. When John spun, the raining hammer fists turned into waves of upper cuts. John stood, but every time he began to make a move Eric pushed him back down by his head. He reached at Eric’s hands trying to pry them from his hair, but every time Johnny tried he left a portion of his face unprotected and a fist managed to find it and connect with it.
John managed to grab hold of Eric’s foot and pulled it in hoping to pull it up to gain some form of control, but Eric dropped his shin on the top of his neck and began hammer fisting the side of his face again. John pushed up letting go of his leg and the upper cuts began again. One upper cut connected clearly and made his body go limp.
The full weight of the large man fell from Eric’s hand and he let go of his hair. John was still moving and was still conscious, but barely. Eric rolled him over to his back and began making connections squarely to the front and sides of his face. John was no longer protecting himself and was clearly unconscious, but something had hold of Eric and wasn’t letting go.
“That’s enough!” One of John’s guys screamed, and Jay’s crew agreed. It took Shawn and Brian both to pull Eric off of him and even they were having troubles stopping the onslaught of blows.
“You’re going to kill the man, if you don’t stop!” Brian screamed into his ear, finally making him calm. John’s crew immediately pushed the chairs and table out of the way and one guy ran for Doc, as soon as they had made space and pulled Eric off.
**********
Eric worked in the shop the entire day. Jay didn’t want him leaving the motor pool and be by himself walking through the village. Jay even assigned Joey to sit in class and keep an eye on Naomi for the rest of the day, even though Joey quickly fell asleep sprawled out over one of the log seats.
During dinner Naomi joined Eric in the motor pool’s building and Jay came in shortly after. “How is John?” Eric said to both of them as they sat at the white plastic folding table.
Naomi didn’t know, but Jay responded. “He’ll be ok, but he definitely knows he got in a fight.” He laughed a little. Eric thought it was humorous, but Naomi didn’t find it as entertaining.
“You know there’s a lot of shit going around right now.” Naomi said annoyed. “Dan is all kinds of riled up and talking about getting back at you. And me too.” Now she was angry, “What are we going to do? All kinds of rumors are being spread.”
“I don’t know?” Eric responded
“If you wanted the four of you could stay here tonight.” Jay suggested.
“Where’s the kids?�
� Eric asked.
“There with Victoria. They’ll be alright, for now, but I would not put it passed Mike and Jeremy to do something to Drew. I don’t think they would mess with Sam.”
“Jay could you give us a minute?” Eric asked.
“Yeah sure, anything you want.” He began walking out the door. “Did you two need anything?”
They both shook their heads, no. Eric reached over the table and grabbed hold of her hand. “It may be time we consider leaving.” He entered this topic lightly knowing Naomi’s initial reaction when they were going to leave when they first got here.
“It’s fucked up, we are talking about leaving when these hicks are the ones who are starting all the trouble.” She was getting upset. “Why don’t you, Jay and the rest of them just handle those people?”
“You know it’s only going to get worse. Once we go after them, they are going to come right back even harder. Someone is going to get severely injured if we keep doing what we’re doing.” He leaned in talking lower, “You know Dan and Jeremy are sitting with Mike somewhere right now talking about how they are going to get back at us. And it’s not just us they are going to try to get back at. They may bring Drew and Sam into it.”
“I’ll fucking kill them first.” She said pulling back and becoming enraged.
Eric pulled her back down and close. “Before we have to do anything crazy lets leave. I’ll drop a car off so we can walk out the gate and it will be waiting for us. I can do it tomara.”
“Why don’t we just leave during the day? Tomorrow afternoon or something, won’t they give you a vehicle?”
“Jay would that wouldn’t be a problem, but the other groups may say something. Besides if people know we are going to leave Dan and his crew may try to do something sooner. I can get that Explorer over there. I’m the one that does all the maintenance on it, so I can test drive it and drop it off a few hundred yards down the road.”
