by David Achord
I waited for an answer, but did not get one. I pushed on.
“Are either of you sleeping with other people?”
“No,” Sam answered quickly, his head snapping up. “We love each other.”
“Are you ready to get married and become a father?” I asked. I gestured at Fred. “You know, your mentor over there is an old-fashioned Christian man. He’d be extremely upset if you got Serena pregnant and then didn’t marry her.”
Sam worked his mouth but did not answer.
“Your reluctance to answer indicates you’re not ready.”
“No, it’s not that,” Sam said.
“Is it because you haven’t thought this through?” I didn’t wait this time for him to answer. “No, you haven’t. This is why we’re concerned. We don’t want you to get entangled in a mess. Let me ask you this, what does Serena think about it? Have you spoken to her since you two got caught?”
“Not really,” he admitted.
I gave a small smile. “Well, you’re in luck, because after dinner, Susan and Kelly have decided to sit you two down and talk about the birds and the bees.”
Sammy’s face paled. My inclination was to chuckle at his discomfort, but I managed to keep a serious expression.
“So, think about what you are going to say and what your long-term intentions are with Serena. It’s extremely important.”
He looked up. “Why?”
“Because, if her mother says the two of you can’t see each other anymore, that’ll be the end of it.”
A mixture of anger and fear quickly came over his face. “She can’t do that,” he cried.
“Yes, she can,” I said. “Don’t think for a minute she can’t. So, think that one over when you talk to her this evening.”
“Why?” he asked with a little bit of defiance in his voice.
“Because, you’re still a kid, Sam,” I explained.
“But you weren’t any older than me when you and Julie were together,” he contended.
“That’s true,” I said. “But, this isn’t Nolensville. This is Mount Weather, a structured society, and a structured society has mores, you know what those are, right?”
“Umm,” he said.
“Mores are the customs and rules of a society.”
“I know that,” he said glumly.
“So, here’s how this goes. If Serena’s mom doesn’t want the two of you to see each other anymore, that’s the end of it. Now, I know how it will go. You two will defy that order and continue to see each other on the sly. Do you know what’ll happen then?”
He looked at me but didn’t answer.
“I can’t simply say, sorry Susan, kids will be kids. We’ll have to send you away. Put you up with a family in one of the nearby communities or move you to Fort Detrick. You think about that.”
Sam wanted to argue. He looked over to Fred for help. A highly spirited debate ensued. It went something like this —
“Let’s ride,” Fred said.
That was the end of the discussion.
Fred led and followed tracks that were all but invisible to me. We only went a short distance to an old, dilapidated barn located five hundred yards east of Fred’s future house. At Fred’s signal, we stopped the horses fifty yards out, tethered them, and then silently converged on the barn. We approached the opening where the barn door used to be and separated to each side, weapons at the ready. I looked at Fred who gave a micro.
I was eager to kill some zeds and fully expected them to put up a fight. However, I was not expecting four pitiful-looking zombies who used to be women, sitting on the cold ground in the corner, huddled together and clinging to each other in sheer terror.
The oldest one looked like she was in her fifties, the youngest was a teenager. Judging from the amount of blackened scar tissue, I guess they’d been infected for at least a couple of years, maybe longer. There were the remains of birds and rodents piled to one side.
I glanced at Fred. “They’re scared to death.”
He did not even bother with a micro nod this time. Instead, he holstered his pistol, walked closer, and squatted down in front of them. A regular zed would have attacked immediately. These four continued to cower in fear. After a moment, he spoke.
“I believe they are going to need some blankets and maybe some raw meat to eat.”
“You’re kidding, right?” I asked.
We ended our morning ride with a full-out run for the last mile. It was fun and invigorating, although my face was numb by the time we got back to the horse barn.
“What are you going to do with those zombie women, Fred?” Sam asked as we walked the horses around the perimeter to cool them down.
“Those girls,” he said. “Can you imagine the suffering they’ve gone through?”
I noted he referred to them as girls instead of zeds. “You’re feeling compassion,” I said. “Do you think they’re capable of the same emotion?”
“They feel fear,” he replied. “Fear is an emotion, right?”
We rode into the barn before I responded. “You’re going to start caring for them, aren’t you?”
“Thinking about it,” he replied.
Kelly and I filled the role of Sammy’s surrogate parents and met with Susan Abbott after dinner. It was almost comical. I mean, Susan was all upset and ranted on in mock outrage about the defilement committed upon her sweet innocent little girl. Serena sat in a chair and if she could have shrunk up and disappeared, she certainly would have. Sam sat staring at his lap, in which he held his hands tightly.
Honestly, I wasn’t all that concerned, although I did not say it out loud. When Susan was through with her diatribe, I reminded her that the two of them had been sweet on each other since both were eleven years old. Susan dramatically voiced her concern about an unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. Sammy turned red when I told her he was just as much a virgin as her little girl when they did the deed and there was no possible way he had an STD. The pregnancy issue was another matter, and frankly, it was the only thing Kelly and I were concerned about. In the end, she gave in and said the two of them could continue seeing each other, but only when chaperoned.
We’d gotten the kids put down and were lying in bed snuggling when I told her about the zombie women.
“And you two didn’t kill them?” Kelly asked in surprise.
“It’s hard to explain, but they looked downright pitiful. I probably should have killed them outright, but there was something about them sitting there, cowering in fear, it was almost unnerving.”
“What was Fred doing?” she asked.
“About what I was doing. He’s the one who said we should bring them food and blankets.”
“Fred said that?”
“Yep.”
Our conversation was interrupted by a soft knocking at the door. I looked over at Kelly.
“Are you expecting anyone?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Maybe Susan isn’t through expressing her moral outrage.”
I got up, put some jeans on, got a handgun out of my lockbox, and peeked out of the door. It was Grace.
“Oh, hey,” I said and opened the door. When she saw my naked chest, she immediately turned beet red and fixated on the floor.
“Uh, hi, Zach. Can I come in?” she asked and then hastened a glance up and down the hall.
“Yeah sure,” I said and motioned her inside. She clutched her laptop tightly to her chest and walked in. She was notoriously shy when I first met her and even though she was in her late-twenties now, the shyness was still there.
“Hang on, I’ll be right back,” I said and hurried into the bedroom.
“What’s Grace doing here?” Kelly whispered.
“I’m not sure,” I said as I put a T-shirt on and locked up my handgun. “She has her laptop, so it may be work-related.”
“She always has her laptop,” Kelly huffed. “Maybe she wants to show you some pictures of her.”
“Yeah, right,” I re
plied with a chuckle. Everyone knew she had a crush on Melvin. Hell, even her twin brother had a crush on Melvin. “Are you coming out?”
She adjusted her head on her pillow and closed her eyes. “Nope, if your unborn child will allow it, I’m going to try to sleep.”
I nodded in understanding, gave her a kiss, and closed the door behind me.
I motioned for Grace to sit on the couch and I sat on the opposite end. “So, what’s up?”
She cast a quick glance at me. “I’m sorry for coming over so late. I’ve been worrying over this for hours and I couldn’t sleep.”
“Worrying over what?” I asked.
She fretted a moment and gave her laptop another squeeze with her slender arms. “I have something to show you.”
“Um, okay.”
“I found it a while ago. I wasn’t sure what to do,” she said, opened her laptop, punched a few buttons, and handed it over to me.
I read over the first couple of paragraphs and looked up. She was having a hard time maintaining eye contact.
“Why did you wait so long to show this to me?” I asked.
“I was afraid,” she said, and it looked like she might start crying.
Grace was a sweet, sensitive woman who was perpetually afraid of offending anyone, and the tone in my voice probably made her think I was upset with her. I’d suspected for a while both her and her brother had some form of autism, but I never asked and it was never discussed.
“It’s okay,” I said. “You brought it to me, that’s what counts.”
I spent the rest of the night reading approximately a thousand pages of documents and emails, stopping only long enough to get a glass of water. Grace watched me in silence for the first hour before stretching out on the couch, pulling Macie’s baby blanket over her, and falling asleep.
When I had approached Grace about Fosswell’s password, she’d gone a step further and hacked the general’s account and the doctors’ accounts. A lot of it was mundane, but there were also some interesting documents.
Kelly walked in the next morning, and saw me on one end of the couch and Grace curled up in a ball on the other end.
“Must have been important,” she said as she bent down and kissed me on the head. She paused a moment, reading the document on the screen.
“I’ll get the kids ready,” she said.
I nodded gratefully and closed the laptop before gently nudging Grace. Her eyes opened in fright momentarily, until she recognized me. She then smiled shyly and sat up.
“What time is it?” she asked.
“Almost six,” I said.
She looked at me in surprise for a moment before stretching and rubbing her eyes. “Have you been up all night?”
“Yes, I wanted to read it all.”
“What do you think?” she asked.
“Who else knows about this?” I asked, ignoring her question.
“Only Garret.”
“What about your father?”
She shook her head slowly. I understood. The verbiage of some of those emails could be interpreted in a couple of ways, some of which implied not only his knowledge, but also his complicity.
“Alright, I understand,” I said and handed her laptop back to her. “Let’s keep this between us. I want to think it over and then we’ll talk about it later.”
“Zach, I’m scared,” she said.
“Don’t worry, we’re going to figure this out.”
She looked at me, the worry in her face plain to see, but she gave me a tentative nod and left a moment later.
Little Frederick came running out of the bathroom, freshly scrubbed, and wearing nothing but underwear with SpongeBob and SquarePants on them.
“I’m hungry, Daddy,” he said.
“Me too. Let’s get some clothes on you and we’ll go to breakfast.”
I helped pick out some clothes for him, although, at seven years old, he did not need help to get dressed anymore. However, Macie was six and she still loved being doted on.
“It must have been important if it kept you up all night,” Kelly said as she brushed Macie’s hair.
“Yeah,” I said without elaborating.
Kelly gave me a questioning gaze, but didn’t push it. I was going to tell her everything, but not yet. No, this information was too sensitive. If Kelly mentioned something to someone in a casual conversation, it would spread like, well, like wildfire.
No, I couldn’t tell her. Not yet. I loved Kelly dearly, but she was a social person and liked to talk. Nope, there was only one person I knew I could share this secret in confidence and he wouldn’t tell a soul. That’s because the old cuss didn’t hardly talk to anyone anyway.
Chapter 33 – Fred’s Advice
There were the usual conversations at breakfast, and after we’d finished, I used a slight head motion to lure Fred out of the cafeteria. We took Zoe with us and let her run off some steam before we went to the horse barn. When we walked in, I checked out each individual stall to ensure we were alone. Fred watched with his usual stoic bearing. He had a couple of folding chairs in the far corner where we would occasionally sit and talk. I walked over to them and motioned for him to join me. Zoe continued sniffing around in the barn, and at one point, she startled a mouse, which jumped out of the hay and took off at a run. Zoe gave a startled bark and the chase was on. She eventually caught it and clamped down with her teeth, killing it. When she was through chewing on it, she dropped it at my feet.
“What’s on your mind, son?” Fred asked.
“I’m not sure where to start,” I said. “There is a man who has, how do I put it, gone rogue.”
“Who?”
“General Fosswell.”
Fred seemed both astonished and outraged. I mean, he was so torn up he blinked twice in ten seconds.
“Yeah?” he finally asked.
“Apparently, he’s the one behind most, if not all of the major malfunctions that’ve been happening around here for the past few years.”
Fred was so upset, he looked at some dirt on his boot.
“Any idea why he’s doing it?” he asked.
“According to his son’s writings, ever since his wife died, he’s become somewhat of a religious fanatic. Somehow, he’s got it in his head that we are interfering with God’s will to eliminate the world of sinners, or something like that.”
“What about that pedophile?” he asked.
“You mean Brumley?” I asked. Fred nodded. I shook my head.
“Brumley refused to be vaccinated, which ultimately worked to his advantage. He didn’t get infected, but I don’t think he and Fosswell were colluding together.”
“What happened with him?”
“We left him in Dayton.”
“You should’ve killed him,” he said.
I shook my head. “Don’t think I didn’t consider it, but it didn’t seem prudent. Besides, there were too many witnesses. Alright, so, there we are in Dayton and the Pittsburgh cops, Logan and Liam, capture an infected woman and wrapped her up in duct tape. No muss, no fuss.”
“From what I’ve heard, I kind of like those two boys,” he remarked.
“Yeah, I like them too. So, now, we have a freshly infected zed.”
“And that’s why you went to Fort Detrick.”
“Yeah. At that time, nobody seemed to know what went wrong and I figured a fresh specimen might help those scientists.”
He nodded slightly. ‘You never said when you first suspected sabotage.”
I frowned in thought. “Probably in Dayton when Brumley told me he had not been vaccinated and he was the only one who wasn’t infected. When the docs started going round and round about the possible cause, it made me more suspicious. After some pressuring by yours truly, Kincaid reluctantly conceded both batches of vaccines were bad, but he refused to speculate on the cause.”
“Mmm,” he said.
“Yeah. So now, we have a problem. Hypothetically speaking, we find a group of survivors and they agree to be vacc
inated. Eventually, they’ll hear about Ohio and will become angry that we vaccinated them with what they perceive to be bad serums. Instead of them becoming allies, they’re now antagonists.”
I waited for Fred to say something, but he instead pulled his hat off and casually inspected it.
“Yeah, I’ll come back to that. So, we’re at Detrick and the Stryker breaks down. That’s three Strykers out of commission now, which is yet another issue we’ll have to resolve, but that’s a discussion for another time. So, we could have borrowed a truck and left that day, but we used it as an excuse to stick around, which allowed me to do a little snooping.”
“Did you learn anything?” he asked.
I frowned. “I don’t know. We talked to Andre, you remember him, and Stretch. They didn’t have any inside scoop. They confirmed both of the Fosswell men had been acting strangely, but they don’t know why.”
“And those scientists wouldn’t call it sabotage,” Fred remarked.
I shook my head.
“Mmm.”
He liked that word. It was an expressive word full of meaning, connotation, and emotion. He used it often. I pushed on.
“So, we decided to leave the next day and imagine my surprise when Junior met us at the motor pool. I mean, I’ve never exactly been friends with him. You neither.”
That was an understatement. In fact, he got smart with Fred one day, which was a grave error. Fred jabbed him in the throat with two of his calloused fingers. I must admit, it was funny watching Junior frolic around on the floor like he was having a seizure. Ever since then, our relationship with him had been on the frosty side and we only spoke to each other when necessary.
“Mmm,” Fred said again, a little overwhelmed by the memory.
“So, to confound my puzzlement, Junior acted all friendly and chatted like we were old friends.”
“Why?” he asked.
“At the time, I had no idea. He went on for a few minutes about pets and tells me about his childhood dog. He said its name was Roggenwolf 1199. He repeated the name more than once, which seemed a little odd, but I didn’t give it much thought. Then, he set us up with a military deuce-and-a-half. It was a good thing, because the roads were awful.”
