by J. Thorn
“Page,” Vaughan scolded. “There you are.”
“We were worried, Pagey,” Hendrix was next. “You need to tell someone where you are at all times.”
Nobody said anything, expecting Nelson to chime in next, when he finally got the hint he said, “Oh, I’m just trying to catch Haley in her underwear.”
I was the only one that laughed.
“Page,” Vaughan repeated.
“I did tell someone, I told Haley and Reagan.” Page said firmly.
Page was the kind of eight year old child that listened perfectly and obeyed immediately. Who knew how she would have turned out pre-Apocalypse with five older brothers spoiling her, but in this world she was raised by necessity. I think we were all surprised when she defied Vaughan’s reprimand.
Finally, Vaughan said, “Page, that’s not the same thing as telling Hendrix or me.”
“What about me?” Nelson complained.
“You lost your parental privilege when you admitted to creeping on Haley,” Hendrix groaned.
“Fair enough,” Nelson agreed.
“Page, we all like having Haley and Reagan around, but keeping an eye on you is a big job. We haven’t asked them to watch over you,” Hendrix explained calmly. He sounded so much more like a parent than a twenty-two year old man. His expression was stern and unrelenting under the candlelight. “Plus you have five brothers to keep an eye on you, what more could you ask for?”
“That they take a shower,” I mumbled so only Page could hear me, since we were still cuddled up next to each other.
She burst into a fit of giggles and then attempted to pull herself together. “Hendrix,” she said seriously. “Vaughan, you have my permission to ask Haley and Reagan to accept partial custody.”
“Partial custody?” Vaughan repeated, stunned. “Where in the world did you hear that?”
“In first grade, Jacob Stephens’s parents were divorced. He talked about it all the time.” She held up her hand in a sassy way that showed her age and I couldn’t stop the smile from spreading across my face.
“You think this is funny?” Hendrix looked down at me, but even in the low lights I could see the amusement in his eyes.
“Please let her spend the night with us?” I begged, wrapping my arms around her and squeezing tight.
“We promise to be good,” Haley added.
“It’s alright with me,” Vaughan finally agreed and then turned to Hendrix. “Is it alright with you, sweetheart?”
“It’s only alright with me, if this is an open invitation slumber party.” Nelson brought the candle closer to his face and waggled his eyebrows.
Haley threw a shoe at him, which messed up her in-case-of-emergency-evacuation-outfit, so she had to get up, hunt it down and then re-place it by the other one. Nelson waited until she bent over by her outfit to give her hip a shove and knock her over. She sprawled out on the floor, but I couldn’t see her expression in the darkness.
I imagined it was a “What the hell am I supposed to do with you?” kind of face though.
“Alright, Casanova, there’s no co-ed sleeping,” Hendrix reprimanded, tugging on the back of Nelson’s shirt.
Vaughan cleared his throat and said, “Tonight, at least.”
“What does co-ed mean?” Page asked into the darkness.
“And that’s your cue to leave,” I called out- me, the stern voice of authority.
There was some grumbling from Nelson, but Hendrix and Vaughan shuffled him out and we were left- just the girls- again.
“Haley, I think Nelson has a crush on you,” Page whispered into the darkness.
Haley and I were silent for a long time before she finally admitted, “I think he does too.”
And then we were quiet, each lost in our own thoughts until they turned into dreams.
The next knock on our door happened a little before sunrise. I’d already been awake, in anticipation of getting the hell out of here and so I jumped up at the sound.
Vaughan was standing in my doorway with sleep tousled hair and a neatly trimmed beard. He rubbed a hand over his face, trying to wipe away the tiredness and then shot me a crooked grin.
“Morning,” He rumbled, his voice like gravel.
The good, soothing kind of gravel that I wanted to be made into books on cd.
“Good morning,” I smiled back.
“We’re leaving in a half hour. Can you get everyone up?”
“Yes, no problem.”
He hovered around the door, not making a move to leave. He was making me nervous with all his anxious energy and I wasn’t exactly sure what he was expecting from me.
Finally he said, “Did Page do alright last night?”
“Oh, yeah,” I nodded enthusiastically. “We all slept great.” Which wasn’t exactly true, but my standards for a good night’s sleep had significantly lowered since Zombies became reality. It was super hard to reach REM when nightmares of being snatched from my bed and being forced to work in a brothel that paid in cigarettes kept looping through my head.
“Good,” he smiled.
I smiled back.
“You know you can always trust us with her,” I whispered sincerely. “We’ve already basically adopted her. We will take care of her, Vaughan.”
“So you’re going to stick around with us then?” he asked carefully, his eyes mysteriously shuddered.
“Are you kidding? After this little vacation from Zombies,” I gestured around with my hand, “we are definitely committed to the Parker brothers.”
“That’s good news, Reagan. I think at this point, one or more of my brothers would be heartbroken if you and Haley took off.”
I cleared my throat self-consciously, “Well, then it’s good we’re sticking around.”
“Plus, there’s me to worry about,” he continued, as if I hadn’t said anything.
“You’d be heartbroken?” I laughed, not believing him for a second.
“Not yet,” he took a step closer and played with a loose end of my hair that curled around my shoulder. “But I’m working on it.”
I collided with his gaze and felt myself tilt off balance- not physically of course, but emotionally and spiritually and mentally and whatever other ways there were. Vaughan offered that half-smile again that curved just one side of his mouth and I felt the barrage of butterflies in my stomach like a battlefield assault.
“Get ready, Reagan,” Vaughan ordered gently. “We’re leaving as soon as we can.”
I nodded, it was all I was capable of at this point and turned around to gather Haley and Page. We dressed and packed as quickly as we could and met the boys in front of the house. We double checked to make sure we had everything we came with; it wasn’t like we would be coming back for anything we forgot.
We walked back to the office we’d first come to yesterday and all breathed a huge sigh of relief when the Hummer sat parked and ready. Gary and a couple other guys were just inside the office doors, smoking cigarettes and drinking cups of coffee.
I ignored the coffee.
I didn’t drink coffee anymore and I didn’t think about coffee anymore. There was no reason to drool and envy and change my mind about staying here over hot, delicious-smelling coffee.
Absolutely no reason.
“Damn it, they have coffee,” Haley growled.
“Why must they be so cruel?” I cried dramatically.
“You can’t possibly be that upset over coffee?” Hendrix smirked, his own beard neatly trimmed, and his hair roughly cut.
“Was there a slumber party after all?” I asked dryly. “Did you trim each other’s beards? Cut each other’s hair?”
“Have a pillow fight?” Haley giggled, waggling her eyebrows.
Hendrix- shockingly- scowled. Ok, maybe that wasn’t so shocking. “There was a, uh, large enough mirror so we could see what we were doing.” He actually seemed embarrassed by his efforts to look more human. Unfortunately, I found that really endearing.
I reached up before
I could talk myself out of it and rubbed my fingers along his jawline, “It looks nice.”
He froze, became completely still and his gaze captured mine. Slowly he lifted his own hand and held it over mine, helping me cup his jawline in my hand. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” I smiled. “You look less Duck Dynasty, more approachable human being.”
“Oh,” he sounded disappointed at my assessment. I had to wonder if he was insulted by the Duck Dynasty reference when he said, “I’m not trying to look approachable at all. In fact, my whole thing is that I’m very, very unapproachable.”
I chuckled at his attempted joke. “You want some of us to approach you, don’t you?” I took a step forward to mess with him, bringing our chests just an inch apart.
“Yes, I would like some of you to approach me,” he murmured.
“Then probably you should keep yourself well-groomed,” I patted his cheek a little roughly and turned around.
“You first,” he mumbled and I swiveled around to gape at him.
“That is our secret,” I hissed at him. His reference was to my disgusting legs that desperately needed a shave. He laughed at me and then walked away. “Hendrix, that’s a secret!” I called out, but he was no longer interested in what I had to say.
Vaughan walked out of the office with keys in his hand. He held them up so we could all see them and then pointed at the back of the van.
“Get in,” he ordered.
“Our weapons?” Hendrix bit out, all business now.
“He says we’ll get them at the gates,” Vaughan explained.
Hendrix looked in disbelief back at the office. “And you believed him?”
“Not a chance in hell. But we’re leaving right now with or without them. So get your ass in the car.”
Hendrix obeyed, along with the rest of us. I crawled in the back with the other girls and we took everyone’s packs and laid them as neatly as we could in the trunk from our position. At any other stop we would have taken the time to pack the trunk efficiently and orderly, but I understood Vaughan’s urgency to get out of here. We could deal with a little chaos to escape General Doom and his army of bat-shit perverts.
Vaughan sped to the gate and then hopped out of the hummer to speak with an exhausted looking armed man. He’d clearly been at the gate all night; his eyes were black and blue with exhaustion and his hair a wild mess. He was a little bit twitchy too and I talked myself into believing he’d just drank a ton of coffee.
I mean, if I lived here and had access to coffee, I would probably be jumpy all the time too.
Because once upon a time I was completely addicted to the stuff. Of course, that was when I could add my girly creamers or buy it iced, blended or with soy. Those days were long gone, and I probably wouldn’t have felt the same kind of love for something barely warm, gritty and straight black.
Vaughan started arguing with the guy at the gate, making wide hand gestures, getting in his face and raising his voice. Eventually Hendrix and Nelson hopped out of the vehicle to assist in this testosterone induced demand for our possessions. More hand gestures, more threatening invasions of personal space and finally an intimidating look at each other and the tired man finally shrugged his shoulders and retrieved the three duffle bags.
They looked relatively untouched, sitting at the back of the guard house. Each brother took a bag and immediately unzipped it to check the contents. Whatever was in there apparently wasn’t right because it seemed to only enrage the brothers more. Nelson shot to his feet and got right in the guards face. The guard pulled a gun on him and gestured towards the Hummer.
Vaughan and Hendrix pulled out guns of their own and aimed them directly at the guys face. More guns were drawn from the higher gun towers and the other gun stations. This was like a Western Movie style standoff but the good news was, I was pretty sure I was on the winning side.
Everyone in the Hummer watched on with tense fascination. I was shocked to find out that even though there were all these guns being pointed at the guys, I still trusted Vaughan to get us out of here. Like he said, these men were motivated by fear, but he was motivated by love. Love would win every single time.
Eventually, Vaughan backed down and put his hand on Hendrix’s shoulder, then Nelson’s. He pulled them back and Hendrix finally lowered his weapon. The guard never lowered his, but if I was in his shoes, I wouldn’t have either.
Hendrix loaded up the duffels into the trunk and then they piled back in the Hummer and we were allowed to pass through gate one. Several tense seconds had me biting my nails until we were through gate two, then I repeated the process until we were finally through gate three.
As soon as we were on the other side of the fort, the tension in the Hummer seemed to just lift off us. I watched the two rows of seating in front of me collectively relax their shoulders and let out a breath of relief. It felt so good to be out of there, so safe to be away and back where the Feeders roamed free.
I thought about that for a second, how I felt safer out where I wasn’t. But I couldn’t help it. There was just something so off with those guys. Something I never wanted to witness or be a part of.
Besides we were free of them now, I never wanted to think of them again.
“What’s wrong with the guns?” King asked, breaking the heavy silence.
“There’s nothing wrong with them,” Hendrix bit out. “Except more than half of them are missing.”
“They stole our guns?” Harrison growled.
“And our ammo,” Nelson confirmed. “And then he wouldn’t even admit to it. He just kept saying he had no idea what we were talking about.”
“God, those assholes,” Harrison mumbled.
“Cuss jar,” Page whispered between Haley and me.
“Cuss jar,” I confirmed while my whole body felt sick with nausea. I had about fifty different curses for them in my head and none of them were as nice as assholes, but I didn’t want to owe Page’s cuss jar. She took it very seriously. And if we ever used currency again, I was already at least a hundred bucks in the hole to her.
“What are we going to do?” King asked anxiously.
“We’re just going to resupply,” Vaughan answered easily, in the way he always did, somehow with both assurance and authority.
But that was when the Hummer decided to die.
Chapter Four
The engine sputtered for a while. Vaughan stomped down on the gas so hard I thought his foot would go straight through the floorboards and he started rocking back and forth like he could physically move the car with his body motion.
“No,” Vaughan said simply to the Hummer while the rest of us held our breath. “No, no, no.” Then he let out a stream of curse words that would guarantee Page a full ride to college one day.
The engine continued to sputter while we slowed down to a crawl and then stopped moving completely. And then the final death- the engine ceased living and everything was still and quiet.
We sat in stunned silence for several minutes, nobody moving, nobody talking. This could not be possible. We’d only been on the road for ten total minutes.
“The gas tank says full,” Hendrix finally pointed out.
Vaughan stared at it blankly for three more seconds before leaning forward and flicking it with his finger. The needle dropped down to below empty like it had been stuck on something near the full line.
“I should have noticed it before we left,” Vaughan ground out. “It doesn’t show how much gas is in the car until it’s on. The gas tank read full before I started it earlier and I should have known. I should have paid better attention.”
“It’s not your-“ I started sensitively even while I was reeling with my own rage inside me, but Vaughan cut me off before I could excuse his fault in this.
“Reagan, let me have a few minutes. Then you can soothe my ego. But first I need to get good and pissed off.” But he sounded so calm.
“We’re a thirty minute walk from their fort. We’ve got maybe a third of
our weapons supply,” Hendrix ticked off our situation. “Vaughan they planned this. They did this so we’d have to go back.”
“We’re not going back,” Vaughan said needlessly.
“You’re goddamn right we’re not going back,” Hendrix agreed.
Page opened her mouth to say something, but I quickly shook my head. This was not the time for sarcasm.
“Reagan pass the duffels forward,” Vaughan commanded. “We arm ourselves with everything we have before we get out of this car, alright? Guns first, packs second. Page,” he turned around in his seat to give her his full attention. “Do you remember everything we’ve been over? Do you remember what to do?”
“Yes, Vaughan, I remember,” she nodded.
“Get your gun out, Pagey, and you stay right by my side. Don’t you ever leave my side,” he made her promise.
She nodded her sweet little head and held back the tears I could see threatening to spill over.
I repeated the routine from yesterday, pulling the gun bags over the seat and passing out the weapons and ammo. Then Haley and I passed up the backpacks.
We were able to strap on every piece of gun we had and pack the remaining ammo between us. That was not a good sign. Not at all.
Although it was more than Haley and I had been traveling with a week ago, it didn’t seem like nearly enough for this size of group. We seemed disturbingly unprepared and I dreaded the moment we would step out of the safety of the Hummer and have to walk again.
“Do you think they’ll come after us?” Haley asked while she retied Page’s boots.
“No,” Vaughan answered quickly. “I think they want us to come crawling back to them. We defied their idea of control and they want us to be keenly aware of who’s in charge.”
“I wish there were a way to warn others,” she lamented.
“Haley,” Nelson warned.
“No, I know there’s not. But I just can’t believe this is the world we live in. It’s one thing to have to deal with Zombies, but what happened to the rest of humanity? When did everyone become a douchy bastard?”
