After The Apocalypse Season 2 Box Set [Books 4-6]

by Hately, Warren

  He stood without effort, letting his own blankets fall away, and trying not to shiver in the cold, bare floor-boarded room. A thermal undershirt and the shorts he slept in didn’t do much on their own. When Gonzales stood too, the scrawny man’s pallid skin showed the scars crisscrossed forever across his back. Dkembe’s eyes fell to Erak’s naked hairless rear end and he felt his own shame, and just as quickly bit down hard on it.

  “I could blow you,” Gonzales said.

  “Stop it, man,” Dkembe replied and somehow turned it into an embarrassed laugh. The room still reeked from the night before, try as hard as he could to deny it all come sunlight.

  “Kembi –”

  “Dkembe.”

  “You said –”

  “Gets cold at night,” Dkembe said and couldn’t meet the other man’s eyes either. “Cold and. . . .”

  “Dark.”

  Dkembe was going to say “lonely,” was glad when he didn’t, and nodded his head almost wistful at Erak’s sentiment.

  “Plenty to do,” the young man said. “Breakfast?”

  It was hard to tell if Gonzales was disappointed or relieved, though Dkembe thought maybe that was on him, too. He knew he was glad to struggle into his concrete-stained work pants and then retrieve the boots Gonzales had shifted during the night.

  The bare room carried their silence well. Dkembe scanned around it and couldn’t manage to clear his throat. They’d find furnishings soon. Gonzales could have his own room. He didn’t need him. But the familiarity of his presence – not Gonzales himself, but Michael, the fellow survivor he’d unknowingly replaced in their prison-like union – had a nicotine drag on him he couldn’t quite quit.

  Dkembe took pity on Erak’s sheer miserableness. Not offering to actually hold hands, he held out his hand to the man once he was finished getting his own work boots on.

  “Breakfast, OK?”

  “Yeah,” Erak said. “OK.”

  *

  IT WAS ONLY their fourth morning since moving into the new compound, and strange for him now to be sharing the space with others. Anyone’d think Dkembe stayed within the Vanicek family for months rather than a few weeks, but life in the old apartment was clearer when it was just him and them. He was the lone, indivisible unit outside of Tom’s family group. But things had changed, greatly, and Dkembe was still playing catch-up.

  The two-story brick house was a hive of activity so soon after sunrise. The newest arrivals, Karla and Ionia, thumped down from their room upstairs, while the short-tempered, short-of-words Hungarian Attila sat at one end of the long kitchen table sharing his disfavor with the breakfast gruel. Tom’s son Lucas and his friend Kevin moved quickly out towards the side door to the old collapsed hydroponic area Erak was meant to be repairing and promptly vanished from sight. Tom’s room itself was on the ground floor – too paranoid these days to live at the top of the stairs, he’d told Dkembe, though probably he also didn’t want to listen to the lesbians fucking, and what he might hear or discern about him and Gonzales almost plunged Dkembe into a cold sweat.

  Dkembe watched the brooding head of their de facto household with bruised dark eyes, wary as one might be with an intruder as Tom came around the kitchen table, patted Attila on one of the short man’s burly shoulders, then turned so Dkembe saw Tom’s polite smile and apparent good cheer. Only then did he feel able to relax, too pent up with everything going on to realize at first when Tom started talking to him.

  “Sorry, Tom,” he said and hated how stupid he sounded. “What?”

  “I’m sick of oatmeal,” Tom repeated. “Aren’t you?”

  Dkembe nodded mutely. Tom’s pained smile became forced. Dkembe hated himself just a little for the pity he saw reflected in the older man’s eyes as the impatient man tried his best at being patient, in the process just making Dkembe feel like another of his kids.

  “Looking forward to a little beef in the diet, huh?”

  “Yeah,” Dkembe said. “That would be good.”

  He didn’t normally shit the bed in moments like these, but, uncomfortable with the other strangers watching, Dkembe would’ve doffed his cap if he wore one, instead turning and muttering something about Lucas and Kevin and then heading for the exit after them.

  “Yeah,” Tom said. “Where are those two? Tell Lucas he needs to eat something.”

  The voice followed Dkembe down the short corridor to the side door, but the boys were already gone. Dkembe stood there long moments, hand against the wooden doorframe left splintered and stained with blood until he scrubbed it several days ago. It only took a full day to get their new location in order, thanks to Attila and Erak’s help, which mostly involved tossing out all the personal effects Ortega’s crew left behind when they got themselves killed – and thereafter scrubbing numerous blood stains off the walls and from the wooden floors.

  Dkembe stepped down to confirm the boys weren’t anywhere in sight.

  Closing his eyes, he thought of Tom’s frequent mantra and forced himself to breathe.

  *

  WHEN HE FINALLY steeled himself to re-enter the kitchen, it was just Tom sitting around the table with Karla and Ionia. The two lean-featured women wore their usual coveralls, Ionia with her fine dark curly hair gathered into some kind of wrap. Karla was the ballsier of the pair, sitting closest to Tom with her porridge bowl, but holding a dirty wrench like she aimed to eat with it.

  “There he is,” Tom said with forced cheer and motioned a kind of welcome back to Dkembe who moved around the back of the wood-floor kitchen to the long counters under boarded-up back windows. They’d prized off some of the planks, enough for one window, and the daylight was all they had to see. “As you know, Dkembe’s my right-hand man for the whole cattle yard set-up, so I’d like his opinion. He’s more technical than me.”

  “Yeah, Tom,” Karla said with a deep laugh. “You’re the hammer, and Dkembe’s the . . . what would you say?”

  “Nail,” Dkembe answered without thinking.

  It was more a psychoanalytic response than an accurate statement, and he winced at Tom’s faltering smile as the older man said, “I don’t know about that.”

  But he renewed the smile towards the two women almost as if he was trying to charm them.

  “I’m not that kind of blunt instrument, hopefully,” Tom said. “And I’d like to think Dkembe’s a hell of a lot more use to me than a nail.”

  Dkembe wanted to beam, and beamed anyway. But being of “use” to Tom didn’t sound that great either. Now it was his turn for a faltering smile, which slipped away as he caught on to the two women patiently regarding him, with Tom adding the weight of his gaze too.

  “OK,” he said mutely. “What is it?”

  “Our mechanics here want our help setting up their enterprise in exchange for helping us with ours,” Tom said.

  He motioned to Karla. The wiry blonde turned about in her seat at the table to face Dkembe directly.

  “One of the things we don’t have in the City is ice,” she said. “Takes power to run refrigeration. The Council’s got that. There’s a few chiller places in town. There’s a guy rents out storage for the stallholders. Another guy, just like him.”

  “Just not as good,” Ionia said.

  Her girlfriend nodded agreement. “But none of them can make ice.”

  Dkembe recalled the principles involved. Although he was a scaffolder before the world came to an end, his extended, now extinct family worked transportation and factories all across Baltimore back when there were jobs to be had, years before the Risen.

  “Do you have the gear for it?” Dkembe asked.

  “We know where to get it,” Karla said. “When it’s time.”

  Tom explained, “They want to work for us for food and upkeep. Then we will help them.”

  “OK,” Dkembe nodded. “As long as we can do it within the sanctuary zone.”

  Tom’s polite grin froze and the two women swapped awkward looks.

  “We’re not going to be able to
. . . trade for this stuff,” Karla said matter-of-factly. “We’ll have to go out and get it.”

  “They want to check the university district,” Tom said.

  “Stupid the City didn’t start there,” Karla said. “If they don’t have what we need, we have alternative sites.”

  “But that means going back out among the Risen.”

  Neither woman blinked at Dkembe’s use of the term. Tom pushed his chair back, though he didn’t make any movement to stand up. He kept his knees wide, hands grasped together in his lap as he acknowledged Dkembe’s concerns with a stoic nod.

  “We’d need to do it together,” he said. “With them.”

  “You have Attila and . . . and Erak. . . .”

  “Yeah,” Tom nodded. Exactly. “We’re gonna need them too.”

  But the patriarch could see he didn’t have Dkembe on board yet. He glanced to the other two.

  “Let me and Dkembe kick the idea around when we have a moment.”

  “OK,” Karla said. “What’s on for today?”

  “I owe another meeting with Councilor Wilhelm,” Tom said. He didn’t have to groan for them to know how he felt. “I’ve asked Gonzales to finish bagging up Ortega’s weed. Help yourself, if you want a plant or two. The rest I want to liquidate as fast as I can. Today, really. I’m in hock to more contacts in the City than I like and we still aren’t eating anything better than this shit.”

  Tom motioned dismissively at his own breakfast.

  “Getting this plan up and running is one thing,” he said to the three of them. “If the Confederates come through, we’ll have enough beef to feed ourselves and also trade for anything we might need. We need to get this bunker more insulated before it gets any colder. But we can’t pay our bills until the cattle arrive.”

  Tom sighed, on a roll now with his one-man show.

  “I’m not even sure this isn’t gonna end in a steaming pile of number twos,” he said. “I’m taking a gamble, and you’re all taking a gamble throwing in with me. But I’m done working jobs for the City.”

  The recently redundant Foragers women nodded emphatically.

  “A man I met here once,” Tom said and thought of the long-dead Scotsman Shirts, “he said the City was a place of opportunities, and I guess he was right. But I really don’t know what the fuck I’m doing here. I don’t even know what to call ‘em. Sounds ridiculous, ‘when they bring the cows home’ or something like that, like I’ve stumbled into an old episode of Bonanza or something.”

  The mix of disarming honesty and alpha male showmanship left Dkembe dazed and mildly intimidated. The two women chuckled. Karla almost looked inclined towards the hard-skulled, handsome older man. Ionia only radiated cool amusement, her eyes to the side showing her relaxed comfort with Tom despite his masculine charms affecting her girlfriend. Dkembe felt his inferiority sink further, and when Gonzales entered the room and hovered, making like he might make his way around to join him directly, Dkembe stiffened and started plotting an unobtrusive exit.

  “Dkembe, on the subject of complicated logistics,” Tom halted him. “We need to talk.”

  Tom stood then and started spooning oatmeal into himself in record time while he addressed the other troops.

  “Erak, if you can get onto that job with the weed today, that’s our priority,” he said. “Karla, Ionia, if you’re keen to help out, you might be able to figure out what needs to be changed with the irrigation. We’re going to be planting sometime this week. Maybe even tomorrow. Where are the boys?”

  “I don’t think they’re here.”

  Tom scowled a moment. Dkembe managed not to take it personally. The older man glanced towards the lone kitchen window as if confirming to himself that it was daylight after all and the boys had their freedom to stray from home on occasion. Tom then nodded instead, peeling back towards the two mechanics.

  “Is that cool?”

  “Yes,” Karla said. Her girlfriend only nodded.

  “You’ll also discuss the ice project though?” Karla asked. “You’re going to need to refrigerate those animals once you –”

  “– figure out how we’re going to butcher them,” Tom said and made a pained smile. “It’s enough for me to go vegetarian. But that’s actually what we’ve got to discuss.”

  Tom had the unconscious habit of moving with explosive speed when he made a decision, causing Dkembe to flinch as he crossed the distance to pat his shoulder. While probably intended as a show of solidarity, Dkembe stumbled slightly under the weight, but smiled anyway, glad for his dark skin as he felt his face flush until relieved by the two women returning disinterestedly to their bland meals.

  *

  “YOU GOT A minute?” Tom asked.

  Dkembe almost smiled as if Tom was making a joke, as if he had any choice in the matter – as if he’d do anything else but agree.

  “Uh, sure,” Dkembe told him. “So, uh, what is it?”

  “Are you OK?”

  Now Dkembe froze. Tom kenned his confused look and laughed.

  “No, that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about,” he said and patted Dkembe’s arm again as they moved through into one of the other front rooms just down from the cell where Ortega tortured Councilor Ben-Gurion. “I just wanted to make sure you’re cool so we can have a proper discussion. You seem a little. . . .”

  They passed the gutted radio room and veered down the hall inside the back face of the squat two-floor brick building. There was no view through the windows soldered shut with sheet metal covers.

  “I’m OK, Tom.”

  “OK, cool.”

  Dkembe was positive Tom was about to ask something about Gonzales so he cleared his throat, never great at improvisation, opening the door for the office for them to go in.

  “You wanted to talk logistics?” he asked.

  “We put a lot of the actual plan for the cattle on hold until we got a lot of other things out of the way,” Tom said. “They could be here by October. If they’re not here by the month after that, I’m not sure they’re coming at all.”

  “The deal could fall apart.”

  “It just might not be much of a deal,” Tom said. “We lost a doctor, and a bunch of supplies. Stuff they deserved, frankly. They could’ve killed me. Nearly did.”

  “So . . . what do we do about that?”

  “No, what I’m saying is we have to get on with planning for it if it does comes through,” Tom said. “We almost gotta believe it’s gonna come through. If we aren’t ready, and all these . . . these fucking cows, man. . . .”

  Tom started laughing, almost uncontrollably, and Dkembe felt all the hairs on the back of his neck prickle as if unsafe.

  “Sorry,” Tom said and dried his eyes. “I fully meant what I said back there. You and me make a shitty pair of cowboys, that’s for sure.”

  Dkembe smiled like a school boy. The idea came a moment later.

  “I know someone who might . . . could maybe help,” he said. Quickly racking his brains for the details. The last time he heard, OK Jay had scored digs in Brown Town after the trooper in the Armory raid got killed. “I could go and see?”

  “OK,” Tom said. “We’re still OK to use that Big Falcon for the yard. Looks like the City expansion plans are on hold for now. We need to work out how to butcher the animals, and like Karla said, we need to keep the meat on ice.”

  The thought of going outside the sanctuary zone was enough for Dkembe to lose color completely. Tom could see it and he backed off, hands raised.

  “Listen, just think about it,” he said.

  “Sure,” Dkembe lied. “OK.”

  *

  GONZALES CAME BACK through the main gate as Dkembe approached wearing the Day-Glo green puffer jacket Tom had joked would make him easy to identify if he turned up dead. Dkembe only shivered in the cold instead, sorting through his meager belongings in his head, working out how he could trade for decent gloves and a scarf. A baseball hat capped his head. Erak wore black coveralls and a timewo
rn leather jacket over an old athletics hoodie. Thumb holes in the sleeves were enough for him. He’d change his tune before winter.

  “I’ve got something for you,” Gonzales said.

  Dkembe slowed, the roller-gate not quite back in place. He rested a hand on it. Kept his eyes down as a discouragement to any more serious talk.

  Erak produced two small gold-foiled bundles and offered them across.

  “Got these yesterday,” he said. “Chocolate. Here, have one.”

  Despite his haggard appearance, Erak had kind eyes, which meant he looked like he’d been hurt – a lot. Hidden by his wiry hair, his forehead was lined with scars from where they’d made him wear a crown of barbed wire once, though who “they” were he’d never explained.

  “Chocolate?” Dkembe replied. “We should share –”

  “There’s only two,” Gonzales said quietly. He was close now, and looked into Dkembe’s eyes. “Just for you and me, OK?”

  “OK.”

  Dkembe untwisted the wrapper and Erak did the same.

  “I wanted to tell you something, too,” the other man said.

  Dkembe ate the chocolate, used the chewing as an excuse to say nothing.

  “I’m no faggot either.”

  Dkembe chewed. Gonzales’ head hung, hair in his face.

  “I just don’t want to be alone.”

  Dkembe muttered, “Yeah.”

  “Same as you, right?”

  Again Dkembe grunted a reply. Affirmative. On guard lest the other man move any closer. Instead, Erak groaned a sigh, trembling at the end as his tears nearly won through. But they didn’t.

  “Just nice to have someone,” he said. “Not be alone.”

  Now Dkembe nodded. Carefully, he put his hand on Erak’s shoulder.

  “I’m here,” he said. More was needed. He hated that he had to rack his thoughts. “I’ll protect you,” he said. “You watch my back, and I’ve got yours.”

  Gonzales started to cry properly then, and Dkembe’s heart broke. He let the other man lean into him, much the same height except Erak’s forehead immediately went to Dkembe’s shoulder and left wet splotches there as he got himself under control.