by Chris Lowry
Sam was older than me and even I was past the age that was once considered old. I didn't feel old, not yet, but this new way of living was harder. It was tougher on the body. Almost starving, fighting, the adrenal glands working overtime to dump adrenaline in the body a couple of times a day, every time a zombie showed up, or a new person with a gun.
There were just too many ways to die now.
I caught myself and cursed silently. I blamed Arkansas. It had a way of making me feel morose, of turning me into a pessimist.
I knew better.
Back in the before, I spent a lot of time working on attitude. It may have sounded new age and hippy, but turns out how you talk to yourself and how you view yourself has a lot to do with the way our life is.
If you're a constant Debbie Downer, life is going to give you a bunch of lemons. It's what you expect and it's what you notice.
But if you focus on the positives, focus on the opportunities, focus on solutions, life gives you those as well. The more you focus, the more you find them.
Sam may have been tickling last centuries’ definition of old age, but he was alive. He survived the worst thing to happen to the human population since the Black Death. He was moving. He had food last night, and food this morning and he was in Arkansas.
So did I.
So was I.
Little Rock was just a few hours’ drive from here, even on country roads. I was in the same state as my kids, finally.
I survived so far. I was getting better at it.
Now I just had to find them, and I knew where to start looking.
Just needed to eat dinner, sleep with the knife under my pillow and take off at first light. I grinned. I had a plan and a goal. No devil could stop me now.
CHAPTER SIX
I shouldn't have been thinking about the Devil as we walked up to a farmhouse, but the oak in the front yard looked spooky, a simple tire swing creaking on worn rope twisting in the wind. It was an older home, but at least it wasn't wood and didn't look like something out of a horror movie.
If it did, I might have turned tail and ran, Sam and Scratch be damned.
But it looked like a simple brick ranch home, surrounded by a thick wooden fence like a barricade and I suppose that was what it was. The first line of defense against zombies.
Sam opened the latch and ushered me through the gate. I could see Boles sitting on the front porch in a leather wing chair that looked out of place.
He had his pistol in his lap, but his hand wasn't close to the grip. Not that it mattered too much. I was behind the fence and all I had was a thin filet knife for gutting fish.
Boles smiled and stood up from the chair.
“Glad you could make it,” he took three steps down and met me to shake my hand, holstering his pistol as he did.
I pulled my empty hand out of the serape and shook back.
“I think Jean almost has supper ready, what you think Sam?”
“Yes sir,” Sam didn't look at Boles.
“You going to go get the others?”
Sam nodded and shuffled around the side of the house.
“Others?”
Boles motioned me to follow him inside the house.
“We got about a dozen people here,” he said and stepped through the door into a dark hallway.
The hair on the back of my neck was trying to send all sorts of signals to my gut, but the man had a gun. I gritted my teeth and stepped in after him. The ball of worry in my stomach unclenched a little inside. There was a light at the end of the dark hallway where it opened into a large room the stretched the length of the house.
I've heard of open floor plans, but this was one for an architect's digest. The ceilings were twenty feet tall leading up to a second floor. The back wall was all window looking out over a swimming pool, two pool houses on either side and a green pasture that stretched back to a row of trailers about one hundred meters away. The trailers were pressed end to end to form a metal fence and I could see people moving around them, in and out, smoke from fires curling up in a fog over the rooftops.
The back room had a huge stone fireplace on one end, and a kitchen on the other. A giant room that must have been twenty-five feet wide and twice that long.
Boles led me to a long plank table near the kitchen and offered me a chair with my back to the wall so I could see through the windows.
“Impressive?” he smiled and settled across from me.
I nodded.
“Nice set up.”
“We've had to make do,” he told me. “This wasn't my house. I just took it after... you know.”
I did know.
There was a lot of taking after and not too many people around to object to the taking, especially in the Delta.
“We're safe here,” said Boles. “As safe as can be expected, I suspect. Where you from?”
“I'm coming from Florida,” I answered. “But I'm from Pine Bluff.”
“Really?” he squinted one eye. “You don't sound like you're from here.”
I worked hard to sound like I was from somewhere else, but I could feel the drawl wanting to come back.
“I've been travelling a lot.”
“Why you coming back? Things are pretty bad out there.”
“I'm checking on some of my relatives.”
He nodded, like that was a wise thing to do.
“You heard much about Pine Bluff?”
I shook my head.
“They burned it down.”
I wondered who he meant.
Pine Bluff had an arsenal for the disposal of chemical weapons, and a population that dropped from over sixty thousand when I lived there to just above thirty the last time I drove through. Arkansas had a couple of militant groups, especially in the North part of the state. Did any of them come down and steal weapons? Did the Z overrun the city or did someone burn it down trying to fight the Z.
It was all passing curiosity, because while I might have to travel around Pine Bluff, my kids lived further north in Little Rock. I could stick to the more rural roads through England and up to Scott to find a way to cross the River. It was almost all farmland, much like what I walked through this morning.
Less people meant less trouble.
I just had to make it through dinner first.
A caramel skinned vision served us drinks. I watched the back of her in the kitchen as we sat, then she was behind me. When she brought me a glass of lemonade and set it beside me, I could smell violets and vanilla. I glanced up to smile.
“Thank you.”
She didn't make eye contact, didn't nod or smile back. She placed a second glass in front of Boles. Same look with him.
Her shoulders were hunched and she moved like she wasn't trying to make noise. Wasn't trying to be noticed.
Boles reached out and ran a hand down the small of her back and across her round rump. Jean didn't flinch, but she looked like she almost lost that battle.
“Get our plates,” Boles told her.
She hurried back into the kitchen.
I could see Sam through the window leading a group of people past the pool and down the sloping pasture toward the trailers. They were all black, dressed like him in simple work clothes, and shuffled like he did.
I heard the front door open and listened to two sets of boots clomp down the hall. Two giants stepped into the room.
I'm a student of history, or at least I was before the Z.
I read stories on a lot of different topics, articles and if I'm confessing, was a bit of a bibliophile. I would read an article about ancient people, how their average height was five feet, and dig into some other article about Vikings who due to increased protein from fish in their diet, could top six four, six five and literally stand head and shoulders over the villagers they raided.
Or world travellers, rare at the time who would wander from town to town in countries and carry with them stories of giant men they had glimpsed and seen. They never told tales about normal men, because
after all, who wanted to hear a day in the life of a farmer? The villagers wanted tales of conquest, glory, battle and anything that pulled them out of their ordinary lives. Tales of giants would do that.
I thought all this because they weren't literal giants.
But the shorter one was six foot six inches and the one behind him was six eight or six nine. They were built like line backers, thick banded muscles, huge necks, bullet shaped heads and I could see they were brothers.
Dim eyes flicked to me and the first one stopped to stare. The second bumped into him and started cussing, a half word out of his mouth before he saw me and shut up too.
Tweedle Dumb and Dumber.
“Here my cousins,” said Bole.
We locked eyes and I could see he wanted a reaction from me.
“What are you going to do when they hit their growth spurt?” I asked.
He grinned then and gave a quick guffaw.
Tweedle Dumb and Dumber glanced at Boles and started smiling like his laugh gave them permission. They moved to the table and set on long plank benches on either side, their bulk taking up a huge portion of the twelve-foot section.
“This here's Leon and Dion,” Boles introduced them. “They been overseeing my workers.”
Dion was the bigger boy and he pounded the table with a ham sized fist. Our glasses jumped, spilling lemonade.
Jean hurried over to the table with two gallon jars and set them in front of the big boys.
Tweedle Dumb, or Leon, but I think I was going to stick with my initial impression grabbed Jean around the waist and jerked her across his lap. He ran a hand up her leg under the plain skirt, thick white fingers on her skin like white spiders.
She didn't move, didn't flinch, just stayed where she was as he moved his hand between her thighs and rubbed. Hard.
“Act right Leon. We got a guest.”
Tweedle Dumb turned two piggish beady eyes in my direction and grunted. He let go of Jean and pushed her off his lap, then smelled his fingers.
Tweedle Dumber laughed, and Boles shook his head in amusement.
“You know it ain't your turn tonight,” he said.
Dumb grunted again.
“You just going to have to go down and get you something else,” Boles continued.
Grunted again as Jean came back and slid a platter of beans, greens and cornbread in front of him. It was twice the size of a normal plate. She returned with a second platter for Dumber and placed a normal plate in front of Boles.
I got a bowl.
They tucked in with spoons, no preamble. Just slurping and scraping sounds as the three men shovelled food into their gullets.
I took a small bite.
Jean watched them while they ate, fear and loathing battling it out in her eyes. She was scared of these three men, and hated them.
After what I just saw, I couldn't say that I blamed her but it wasn't my problem.
We finished the meal, if not quite in silence then at least without talking.
“What do you think of them beans?”
“Hot,” I told him.
Boles laughed. His cousins did not.
“I have Jean cook 'em with peppers we got from out back. You ready for the nickel tour?”
“I'd rather turn in if it's all the same to you.”
He glared at me for a second, just a flash of anger, but Jean blocked the view as she cleaned the plates from the table. When she moved back, the smile was plastered on his face.
“He ain't asking,” Dumb said.
Dumber grunted. I guess he agreed with them.
“Maybe a walk would help the digestion.”
Boles pushed back from the table and led me to a set of sliders in the glass wall. He opened the door and invited me through first, then stepped in front of me once we were out. Tweedle Dumb and Dumber fell lockstep in behind me.
I tried not to feel small.
I tried to blame the roiling in my gut on the beans. But I can admit I'm not comfortable with a pair of giant strangers looming behind me. I kept a hand inside the serape on the handle of the knife.
I wasn't sure if it would do too much good against their thick blubbery skin, but maybe a couple of quick swipes across the forehead could blind them long enough for me to get away.
If they didn't crush me first.
I wanted a sling. And David.
And a tank.
Two tanks while I was wishing.
“We got about two hundred acres of soybeans out there,” Boles pointed to the farmland that surrounded his ranch house. “When they come in next year, we're going to be sitting pretty on food and even have extra to trade.”
“Smart.”
“You darn right it's smart,” he grinned. “I was an insurance salesman before all this. I even insured this farm. That's how I knew to come here once it happened.”
“What happened to the owners?” I asked.
I didn't mean to say it. Not my business, I was moving on. But I got distracted staring at the line of eight trailers that formed the far end of the property and the people there, all women or almost.
Black women.
“They're over there,” Dumb guffawed and pointed.
I followed the tip of his thick finger to a couple of fresh graves scratched into a patch of soil.
“Nice of you to bury them.”
“It was the Christian thing to do,” Boles smiled.
“Most people just leave Z where they fall.”
“Z huh? That what you calling them?”
I nodded.
“Yeah, the Cartwright's weren't Z. They just thought they were better than me, that's all.”
“Thought they was better than all of us,” Dumber grunted.
“But I guess they learned their lesson.”
Boles led us past the pool and toward the tiny collection of trailers. The women and four men stopped what they were doing and watched us approach. Sam sat by the fire and looked up from stirring the pot.
“Evening folks,” Boles greeted them.
They stood in frozen silence. The women eyed Dumb and Dumber, the whites of their eyes showing, standing stock still as if they were frozen. Even the men didn't move. The two giants moved around me and waded into the group. They each picked one woman by the arm and led her back toward the house.
The rest watched them go.
The chosen bowed their heads, two of the men glared, but no one made a move to stop them.
“These fine folks help take care of the farm,” Boles explained. “How's dinner tonight Sam?”
“Fine, sir,” Sam didn't look up.
“Sam's in charge out here,” Boles told me. “But he knows who's in charge of the whole outfit. Don't you Sam?”
“Yes sir.”
“We all agreed to get through this together,” the man put his hand on the handle of his pistol. “And we been doing fine so far.”
I glanced up at the house as the two men led the women through the slider.
“It looks like it.”
“Yeah we got ourselves a nice little set up here.”
“I'll be moving on at first light,” I told him.
Don't get involved. Not my circus.
He looked like he wanted to nod but didn't. I could see the three men watching me. Sam looked up from his pot of what smelled like stew.
If I could have made the fence, I would have run.
If I had a gun, I would have popped Boles first, then worked through the rest and sniped the giants as they ran through the door.
But all I had was a thin nine-inch blade with a dull point.
“A nice little set up,” Boles said again.
It was one of those situations where everything felt off, surreal. Sam was watching me, Boles too. I could feel all the eyes of the crowd on me, the air thick with tension or anticipation.
I tensed up and tried to plan it out. How it would happen, who would make the first move.
Maybe I watched too many westerns growing up, the gun
slingers facing off in the dusty streets in front of the saloon, violin music ratcheting up the tension, camera tight on the eyes as they squinted at each other and waited for the first one to draw.
Then they didn't.
In the movies, they did. Noon o'clock high was the time to slap leather and take out some hombres. But on the farm in Arkansas, Boles just laughed.
The tension was gone, evaporated like smoke from the fire.
He began walking toward the house and I fell in beside him, our steps crunching in the worn grass and dirt.
"I can put you up in the guest bedroom," he said. "Long as you don't mind a little noise from the boys. They can get a mite rowdy."
"I won't be bothered," I told him. Noise or not, I wasn't planning on sleeping much tonight. If I could have managed the one eye open trick, I would have done that. Or I could just sneak off at three in the morning, get outside the fence and make it off his land before sunrise.
They were selling too much crazy here. The vibe was off, like I'd stepped back in time. Was he running a slave farm?
I almost asked. More information might clear some things up. Maybe it was something in the smoke, or food or just being back in the state. The Delta had always been rich in history, which was a department of tourism's way of saying old norms and ways were still in effect.
Better for me to move on than worry about what was going on here.
Boles pointed to the last door of three in a short hallway.
"That's your bunk."
"Thank you."
He waved and disappeared to the other side of the house.
I walked past the two doors that bracketed the hallway and heard grunts and tiny cries of pain. Like they were competing with each other.
I could stop it. I had the knife, I had the advantage of first movement. A quick bust through the door, a couple of swipes and then set up an ambush when his brother came to investigate.
They would have guns I could use on Boles when he ran across the living room. I could take their weapons and his horse and make the two hundred miles to Little Rock.
I didn't.
I moved past the door to the third.
Jean was turning down the sheets. She jumped when I stepped in.
"You scared me," she said.
