by Josh Vasquez
“Here,” he said, presenting her with the walking stick. “You can use this for now.”
“Thanks,” she said, taking the stick.
It was just the right height to lean on. She took several practice steps, keeping the weight off her bad foot. It wasn’t the greatest solution, but she appreciated the effort he went through to find it.
“Hold on,” he said, reaching out for the stick.
She handed it over, balancing herself on her left foot. He took the hatchet from his belt loop and knelt down. He started chopping bits off one of the ends, spinning the staff as he did. He stood up when he was finished and handed it back.
“Now we have two weapons,” he said.
Tori looked at the tip of the spear and nodded.
“Nice. Thanks. Again,” she said.
Josh smiled.
“You’re welcome.”
***
They walked for another hour, taking micro breaks every few minutes. Tori appreciated how Josh tried not to push her too hard, but she felt like a burden to their progress.
“Seriously, you should leave me.”
“I’m not leaving you, Tori,” he sighed, aggravated by her persistence.
“I’ll be okay. For real. I have this pointy stick.”
He turned and looked back at her. His look was disapproving.
“No. We’ll just take our time. The others will probably return to the house. We’ll do our best to meet them there.”
She let out a sigh, but she knew he would not leave her.
It was worth another shot.
The road they were on weaved through a stretch of woods that seemed to go on forever. Everywhere she looked, Tori saw trees, trees, and hey, guess what? More f’ing trees. She was sick of trees.
At least it’s not hot, she told herself.
The December sun was out above them, but not in full force. It halfway hid behind a cluster of clouds, only peeking out every now and then.
Josh stopped.
“What is it?” Tori asked.
“A sign,” he said, pointing up ahead.
In front of them, several yards away, was a metal sign, glinting in the sunlight.
“Go see what it says!” Tori yelled. “I’ll catch up to you!”
Josh looked back to her.
“Go!” she shouted.
He took off running. She did her best to shuffle behind him, her stick steadily ticking against the pavement as she did.
Josh was mere feet from the sign, when he halted and spun back around.
“What are you doing?” Tori asked, but her question did not go long without an answer.
A pack of zombies shambled out from the woods by the sign. It was a decent sized group, about ten of them in total. If they had better weapons, they might have been able to take then them on, but with Tori’s ankle, it would be difficult.
Josh had other plans.
“Jump on my back!” He yelled, kneeling down in front of her.
“No way!” she argued. “I’m not going to let you carry me!”
The dead moaned, signaling that they spotted fresh food.
“We don’t have time for the bullshit, Tori! Get on!” He yelled.
Her mouth dropped at his language. She could not recall a time when she heard him say anything bad.
Tori did not argue and jumped on his back. He stood up, shifted her weight, and began to run into the woods. She felt ridiculous, bouncing up and down, as he carried her like a child. With one arm wrapped around his chest and the other clinging to her spear, she felt like an Amazonian warrior, riding on her stead.
His face was slick with perspiration.
“Can you see any behind you?” He huffed.
Tori did her best to turn without adding to the strain of carrying her. She could see the slow moving shapes behind them, but at a distance. They were losing them.
“They’re still back there, but there’s a good amount of space in between us. You can probably slow down now,” she said.
He grunted something in reply, but kept his pace. He bobbed and weaved through the trees. Tori turned her head again. She could not see any of the dead.
“They’re gone, Josh. You’ve lost them.”
He ignored her again.
“Josh! Stop!” She demanded.
Again, he ignored her, pushing on into a wall of brush.
Fine, be that way, she thought.
Tori did the only thing she could think of.
She pulled up on the reins.
Her arm tightened around his neck, cutting off his oxygen. He began to cough and sputter, but continued to run. The branches of the thicket scratched at them, urging them to turn back. The wall of green appeared to be never-ending.
Josh broke through to the other side and stopped, falling to his knees. Tori eased herself off him, releasing her death grip on his neck.
“Are you out of your mind? Why do you have to be so stubborn? Why didn’t you sto-”
Tori fell silent as her eyes caught the same thing Josh was staring at as he caught his breath.
In front of them, tall, emerald green stalks reached up into the canopy. Camouflaged nets crisscrossed from the treetops, shielding the tall plants from any curious eyes. Marijuana plants filled the entire grove.
Josh looked up at Tori, whose mouth was open in shock.
“That’s a lot of dope,” he said.
Chapter Thirty One
Lexx and Black returned hours later. Jeremy and CJ were sitting on the hood of the truck as they walked back up.
“Did you find anything?” Jeremy asked.
Lexx shook his head and he sat down on the ground in front of the truck.
Jeremy was not surprised. He did not expect the men to return with anything. If Josh and Tori made off on the ATV as they thought, then most likely, there would not be much to find.
“They broke through the fence,” Lexx said.
“What?” Jeremy said, sitting up straighter.
Lexx looked up from his spot. The man looked tired.
“Yeah, that’s what I said. They must have been going pretty damn fast to break through that thing.”
“I guess the wall wasn’t as solid as we thought,” Jeremy said.
“No,” Black said. “It was solid. They must have had no other choice. I’m surprised they survived a collision like that. We searched the surrounding area, but found no trace of the ATV or them.”
Jeremy looked at CJ. The boy shrugged.
“I’m telling you guys,” he said. “My uncle will come back here. We just need to wait.”
“Yeah, but for how long kid?” Lexx asked.
CJ shrugged again.
They had no shelter except for the truck. No weapons except for Black and White’s pistols, the few bullets shared between them, and Jeremy’s machete. No food. The water pump was still there of course, but with no way to contain the water, they were stuck with drinking straight from the pipe. Not ideal.
“Where’s Mike?” Black asked, noticing his partner’s absence.
“Bathroom,” Jeremy answered, jerking his thumb to the woods.
Right on cue, White emerged from the woods, buckling his belt. He waved and walked back over to the group.
“I’m guessing you didn’t find anything?” He asked.
Lexx relayed to him the information about the fence.
“Damn. That’s crazy. So, how long we gonna wait here?”
“Until they get back,” Lexx said without hesitation.
“We’re gonna need better shelter than just the truck. We’re sitting ducks out here and I don’t want to sleep in the road again,” Black said.
White eyed is partner.
“Will, can I speak to you for a minute?” he said, motioning for his partner to step aside.
Jeremy watched as the two officers discussed something. Black at first was against whatever White was proposing, but eventually seemed to cave and agree. The two of them walked back over.
“
We can go back to the police station in Statesboro,” White started. “It’s not ideal, but it’s better than here. Plus, we still have the cache of weapons there locked up tight.”
He held up the keys attached to his belt.
“That sounds great,” Jeremy said, CJ nodding beside him.
Lexx stood up.
“What if they come back here and we’re gone?” He asked.
“We’ll wait until this evening. If they’re not back by then, we’ll leave them a note saying where we went,” White answered.
Lexx shook his head.
“And they’re just supposed to drive the four-wheeler all the way to Statesboro? C’mon, that’s just not gonna work.”
White looked at Jeremy.
“Lexx is right. We can’t just expect them to get there from here,” Jeremy said. “We’ll have to come back daily to check.”
“Jeeze kid,” Black said. “You know how much of a pain that’s gonna be? And the gas that’s gonna use? Not sure if you noticed, but the gas stations ain’t getting any more anytime soon.”
“Oh, really? I haven’t noticed,” Jeremy shot back. “What do you suggest we do then?”
Black said nothing.
“I didn’t think so. For now, that’s the plan. Take it or leave it.”
***
Josh and Tori moved through the rows of cannabis, the sweet, sticky smell wafting heavily through the air.
“I think I’m getting high just being around this much pot,” Tori joked.
Josh laughed.
“I know right. I feel like I’m in a High Times photo shoot.”
“Have you ever seen this much before?” Tori asked as she gawked at the height of some of the plants.
“Not in real life,” Josh said. “Certainly bigger than anything I’ve ever grown.”
Tori stopped walking.
“Huh? What?”
Josh turned to look at her, a devious smile on his face.
“I thought I’d get that reaction.”
“You grew pot?” She asked.
“Haha, not really. I once grew a seedling on my windowsill as a teenager. Told my mother it was a seed I found in my shoe and I wanted to grow it in order to find out what it was. I called it my ‘shoe-plant’.”
“Was your mother dumb?”
“Ha, no, just a little naïve I guess. I think she eventually figured it out and told me to get rid of it. It was my first and final attempt to grow.”
He smiled again and Tori could not help but laugh.
“I’m assuming this is before your holy-roller stage?”
He nodded.
They walked up to the outside of the little shack. It was not much to look at from the outside, four walls, a roof, and one door.
“You see that pipe over there?” Josh said pointing towards a lone steel pipe sticking up from the earth.
“Yeah. What about it?”
“It’s a vent,” he said. “A lot of times these grow operations have underground rooms. Gives the farmers a place to hide from authorities. I bet the entrance is in the shack.”
“How do you know that?”
“Dateline,” he said with a smile.
He reached for the doorknob and opened the door. Inside, a lone cot sat on a box. A small, card table sat next to the cot, dirty magazines spread open across the top. Tori noticed that Josh looked everywhere except for the table.
Strange, she thought.
They entered and Josh immediately walked over to the cot, avoiding eye contact with the table. He kneeled down and began to inspect the ground around the base of the box.
Tori walked over to the table and began to flip through the pages of the magazine on top of the stack. Pages stuck together as she turned them, making her wish she had just left them alone.
“These people were into some hardcore stuff,” she said.
Josh looked up, and after realizing she meant the porn, looked back down.
“Yeah, okay. I think I found the switch.”
He flipped something and then lifted up the cot. It opened and revealed a ladder leading down into the box. Josh was right; there was an underground level.
“Oh wow,” Tori said. “Are we going down there?”
Josh looked down the hole. Light shone below.
“Hello?” He called out.
No reply.
He looked back at Tori.
“There might be food and water down there. It’ll be worth it to check it out.”
She looked hesitant, but her stomach began growling.
Some food would be nice.
Her dry mouth reminded her that they both needed water. Badly. She sighed.
“Fine. But you’re going down the rabbit hole first, Alice.”
“Fair enough,” he said.
Josh climbed into the box and began his descent down the ladder.
“Okay. Looks clear,” he said.
When she reached the bottom, it surprised Tori how much cleaner it compared to the living quarters upstairs. It looked like a hospital with its white walls and clean countertops, except that instead of medical equipment lining the walls, there were shelves of various glass and acrylic smoking pipes.
A couch and recliner sat in the space near the ladder, a large flat screen TV on the adjacent wall. Several gaming consoles and a mini-fridge sat underneath it. Whoever ran this operation sure was not roughing it.
“Jeeze,” Tori said. “You think these guys had it rough?”
Josh laughed.
“No, I don’t think they did, Tori.”
He pointed over to another table.
Tori looked and was not sure how she missed it when she came down.
On the table was several bins filled with harvested marijuana.
“Holy shit…” she said.
They walked over together and stared at the massive amount of grass. Tori reached out and grabbed a hand full, letting the excess fall from her fingertips. She held it up to her nose.
“OMG, smell this!”
She held up her hand to Josh’s face, not giving him a chance to respond. He breathed in, inhaling the sweet odor. He nodded and pulled his head back.
“Wow,” he said. “That is intense.”
“I know right? It’s almost a shame it’s all gonna go to waste.”
She laughed, but Josh continued to stare at the bins. He turned and walked over to one of the shelves full of bongs and pipes. He picked up a glass bowl pipe and turned it over in his hands.
“What are you doing?” Tori asked.
He came back to the bins and began to pack the bowl with marijuana.
“You’re right. We shouldn’t let it go to waste.”
“Huh? You’re going to smoke pot right now?” Tori said, shocked.
He looked up at her. She could see the emotions flooding to his eyes.
“I just lost my wife, my family, everything. Yeah, why the hell not?”
Chapter Thirty Two
Tori stretched out in the recliner. She felt good. It had been years since the last time she was high.
When was it? High school? She thought.
She took another swig from the beer they found in the mini-fridge. The cold liquid felt amazing as it washed over her dry tongue. The cottonmouth on top of dehydration had been quite irritating, but the beer made it much better. She tilted the can back and finished it off, crushing the can when she finished. She threw it to her pile of cans on the ground and burped, which made her break out into a hysterical laughing fit.
Josh sat on the couch across from her, his eyes glazed red and barely open. His smile widened at her burping and her finding humor in her burping.
“Nice,” he said slowly.
“I’m a fucking lady, Joshua,” she said, hiccupping.
He laughed by breathing air in and out of his nose quickly, his body bouncing with each breath.
“What about you?” She asked.
“I’m not a lady, Tori.”
She leaned forward in her
seat and her face got very serious.
“No, stupid! That’s not what I meant. I mean, like, what about you smoking and whatnot?”
Josh leaned back on the couch.
“What do you mean? You’re not making any sense,” he said.
She pressed her fingers into her temples and furrowed her eyebrows.
“Ugh,” she moaned. “What I mean is you’re a ‘boy scout.’ (She uses air-quotes.) Boy scouts don’t smoke pot and drink beer or hang out with the girls that do.”
Josh smiled.
“What if I told you I wasn’t always like this?” He said.
“Stoned?” she asked, completely seriously.
“No. A boy scout.”
“What changed you?” she asked, leaning forward in her seat again.
“Well, ultimately, Jesus changed me. But he did a lot of it through Laura.”
He sighed.
“When I first met her, I was in a pretty rough spot in my life. I was living with a friend and his family at the time. My parents eventually didn’t know what to do with me after catching me with pot several times and one stupid stunt I pulled with an ex-girlfriend. So, they asked this family to take me in. They did, and with the exception of randomly drug testing me, treated me like one of their sons.
Part of that deal was that I worked for their family business and until I got my grades up in school, I worked for free at the daycare.”
“Wait,” Tori interrupted. “They let you work with kids?”
“Haha, no. I cleaned the place. I was basically a glorified janitor. I say glorified because I did more than clean, for example, I filled the kids’ cups with apple juice.
Anyways, I was pretty jaded from my previous relationship and my parents. There were a lot of chips on my shoulder. I was just in this dark place.
But one day, this beautiful girl walks into the daycare looking for a job.
Now, just so you know, I was pretty goofy looking in high school. I had this thick, curly hair that I would pick out into a kind of afro. Wore tattered jeans and a tie-dye t-shirt constantly. Not the biggest stud, if you know what I mean.”
Tori nodded.
“It’s hard picturing you with long hair,” she said.
