There’s also a chance that once this is over, Bree will be so annoyed by Madeline that she needs to burn off some energy, and no, that’s absolutely not factoring into my calculations.
It all starts out well enough. After dropping Bree off with Madeline’s car on one side of town, we take the long way around to what we hope is the best entrance vector. There are car wrecks clogging up the main thoroughfares, but we manage to roll as close as three hundred yards to one of the gas stations. It’s strange to sit in the car without Bree next to me, but that feeling quickly passes as I lead Romanoff, Burns, and Zilinsky deeper into town. There’s movement everywhere, but the commercial area we’re in is much less infested than we expected. Romanoff chances it and fetches the Jeep, going as slow as possible as he lumbers around broken-down trucks and across sidewalks while the rest of us wait. He gets to the gas station without needing to go over a single undead obstacle. At my nod, Zilinsky returns to the others to get the remaining vehicles. The rest of us start casing the immediate vicinity, one of the supermarkets right across the road a prime target. To get inside, some cleanup is required, but we’ve pretty much cleared it out by the time the last car rolls to a halt. I’m about to make sure that everyone knows what they are to look for when a shot rings out—low enough not to startle the shamblers I see a little further down the road, but definitely coming from the other side of town. My stomach seizes up, and before I can ask for anyone’s opinion, a few more follow—and now the zombies are alert and interested. Good for us here, but since I know who’s likely holding that shotgun, I’m less than happy about it. Actually, I’m terrified, and that sensation is so alien that it takes me a second to figure out what has my body suddenly gearing up.
I’m not even halfway done sorting out my thoughts when Zilinsky hands me one of our spare shotguns and jerks her chin toward where the undead are slowly starting to flock to. “Go get her out of there,” she mutters into my ear as she leans close. No question who she’s referring to—and I’m a little surprised at the lack of anger in her voice.
I take off running, first at a slow, mostly silent lope but soon as fast as I can chance it without drawing too much attention. More shots follow—handgun now rather than the shotgun. I attract way too much attention for my own good, but I have over a mile and a half of distance to close, and since I’m not the only thing that’s running now, I hope I’m not dooming myself. The town center gives way to a sprawling residential area, making me switch from the road and sidewalks onto the high grass of the lawns. Bad idea, I realize, when what little in sound dampening I gain gets annihilated when a half-decayed shambler that has been hiding in the grass makes a grab for my ankle and sends me sprawling on the ground. Five more are on me within a second. I fight them off, losing seconds I feel I can’t spare. Two stay down, and when I kill a third, the remaining ones finally lose interest in me and descend on the easily-available meat. Not sure if they are actively eating the corpses or not; they don’t seem to see me where I’ve ducked behind the porch steps of the next house, and that’s fine with me.
Slinking around the house, I peek into the next street over. Since I can see the fields beyond the town limits from here, I guess I’m at least heading in the right direction. Shamblers are everywhere, with still more coming in, and it’s hard to concentrate on anything when my mind wants to go into full fight mode. Flight would make more sense, but my ego disagrees. The new bite wounds on my forearm pulse with my rapid heartbeat, a steady reminder that I need to get Bree out of this fucking mess.
A crash further down the street makes a hundred heads turn in that direction, but I have the advantage: still having a working brain, I can deduce that it came from someone entering a house, not exiting it. So rather than head toward where the stream is suddenly moving, I aim for the next row over, where I estimate the intrepid intruder will appear once more. And, just as I’d expected, it only takes another minute until a pair of legs come easing out of one of the ground-floor windows. Bree drops onto the grass with more control than I would have expected—and for whatever reason, that makes me raging mad rather than glad. Of course I’m elated to see her not just alive but at first glance unharmed, but that quickly gets drowned out by a slew of negative emotions.
She knows better than to shoot into a mass of zombies. If we’ve drilled one thing into her, it’s that stealth is the only way. Even I can’t waltz in here and draw attention to myself, as I’ve all-too-recently demonstrated. She still has her handgun out, and there’s no doubt within me that the shots came from her. I only feel a small amount of relief that it wasn’t Madeline who blindly fired into the shamblers—or at Bree—or a different group of assholes who thought they found an easy target. I’ve only briefly entertained that notion, grim as it is. The very idea of someone grabbing Bree and doing God knows what to her before we can get her back makes me physically sick.
As I start sneaking closer, I admit to myself that I’m overreacting—a first in a long, long time. There’s likely a good explanation for her actions—like her playing the hero. There goes my modicum of sense again.
Around another house, and I’m right at the corner when she gets ready to round it. As soon as she realizes that it’s me keeping her from blindly shooting me in the face, she stops struggling. From up close, it’s impossible to miss just how scared out of her wits she is. For whatever reason, that makes me even madder.
I’m far from gentle when I pull her around the corner and slam her into the wall, her eyes going wide as I lean in. “What the fuck, Bree? What are you doing here?” I whisper into her ear, hard-pressed not to shake her to make her answer me more quickly, any good that would do me.
“What are you doing here?” Of course she has to get defensive now. Her voice is so brittle that I can barely understand the words, and still she has to get in my face. This woman will be the death of me! And while she remains scared as fuck, defiance filters into her eyes, as if she has every right to be here and I have none.
“Are you complaining? Now?” I’d never hit her, not in anger or out of frustration, but there’s a part of me that’s considering choking her out so I can drag her lifeless body onto my shoulders and be done with this farce of a conversation. Fact is, I’d never make it out of here loaded down with that burden, and realizing that only adds fuel to the flames.
“Were you following me?” she asks, accusation heavy in her tone. Oh, great. Now she tries to turn this around on me?
I need to calm down before I can reply, using the momentary distraction of making sure we’re still alone. “I heard shots, so I ran right over here. Are you insane? Don’t you realize that every single zombie in this town is heading here now?”
Defiance gives way to guilt, and I know what she’s going to say before she opens her mouth. “The kids. They were—“
“Fuck the kids! Didn’t I tell you—“ I have to stop myself there because I’m a second away from screaming at her, and then we’d both be dead before I can end the sentence. It takes all I have to regain my composure—and keep it, as we need to clear up a few more things. Then we’re on our way back across town, massively hindered by the presence of the undead all around us. It may very well have been faster to sneak out into the fields and then run a long circuit around town, but since I have no idea how the shamblers will react, it’s better to play it safe. Only for the first ten minutes are we in imminent danger. Then we mostly encounter distracted undead still on their way toward where the shots rang out well over half an hour ago.
Just outside the town center—close to the second supermarket—we pick up backup, Burns and Martinez first, then Collins, Campbell, and Moore. By the time we make it back to the gas station, all but two cars are gone, Romanoff currently topping off the extra canisters stashed in the Rover’s trunk. Burns of course has to make light of the situation—and I admit, I almost burst out laughing when Bree gets all red in the face, admitting that she shit herself—but it’s not exactly humor that has me dragging her toward the car
.
Zilinsky appears at my side just as Bree climbs into the Rover, relieved to see her in one piece. She silently raises her brow when she notices my expression. I wave her off, too wired to say anything I don’t want to regret later. She lets me know that we are about ready to leave.
As soon as we move out, Bree falls in line behind Romanoff. I haven’t even considered asking her if she knows the way. More anger comes up in me, now directed at myself and my own incompetence. How could I be so stupid to trust her to act smart? Just because I gave her explicit orders and repeatedly told her not to be a hero? I’m aware how ridiculous I am, but at the same time I can’t help but feel a different, new emotion: betrayal. I’m well aware that she doesn’t see acting according to what feels right to her as insubordination, but that’s exactly what it is to me. More so, I trusted her and she ignored me, and it’s likely dumb luck that we’re both still alive.
We’re almost an hour outside of town when we pick up Madeline in her stupid little car. I’m honestly surprised that she showed up at our waypoint. I’m still lacking the details but from what little Bree could tell me underway, this is all Madeline’s fault. What did she expect—that Bree would die, leaving her to tell us whatever lies she wants to? For the next ten minutes, I entertain myself with thoughts of dragging Madeline out of her car and beating her into a bloody pulp, no reservation or regrets. I won’t do it, but it feels good to run through the scenario in my head. I know how that sounds so I don’t tell Bree. I’m not quite sure if telling her about my thoughts wouldn’t send her straight for Madeline’s throat once we stop. It changes nothing—and if I’m honest, I’m mostly mad at myself now. There’s a reason why I still send Bree with one of the usual suspects beyond them protecting her and showing her the ropes—to keep her in line and accountable. It’s one hundred percent on me that I chose to deviate from the plan. I’m sure that if I’d stuck to the usual MO, things would have worked out fine. Then again, the streets would have been teeming with the undead, ready to come after us if anyone slammed a car door too hard, so maybe Bree’s idiotic stunt made our work ten times easier. I should have thought of that myself—leave someone to create a distraction while the rest do a quick grab-and-dash. Fuck it.
The storm that we’ve been driving into for the entire day finally unleashes its power on us, and we have no other option than to call it a night. It makes no sense to further endanger anyone by hunting for a suitable building. At best, we’ll find an abandoned barn only to have it collapse on the lot of us. Instead, we follow small roads until one ends in a hollow by a creek, the recessed terrain somewhat safe from the gale-force winds. I’m burning to tear Bree a good one but instead get out and stalk over to where Zilinsky is already waiting for me. While she sends the others scurrying to see to the many tasks of making camp and distributing our newfound loot, the two of us remain standing there with Romanoff and Martinez joining us. Burns ignores the invitation with a clear “your woman, your problem” look at me. Three hours since we left the town, and still I can’t think clearly. I’m also at a loss for what to do, which seems to be quite obvious since Romanoff—only partly joking—drawls, “Who do you want to throttle first, Madeline or Lewis?”
I don’t miss how Martinez and Zilinsky trade glances, both more cautious than they should be. Exhaling slowly, I force myself to drop my guard as I mutter a string of expletives, followed by, “I have no fucking clue what to do! I’m well aware that it’s my fault and my failure that led to this, and I know that nothing more than a strong reprimand is warranted.”
Zilinsky looks downright disappointed. “I hope you also know that this won’t work.”
I’m surprised at her statement; even more so when Martinez agrees. “I think she’s learned the lesson. But if you let her off easy with a quick yell, it won’t stick.”
Romanoff has to prove that the world is united against me when he nods. “The only thing that will do is make her feel like a child. It’s one step forward, and five weeks back.” That statement makes no sense whatsoever, but I get what he means to say. More than anything, he’s given his best to make her feel like just one of the guys, establishing a routine of treating her with the same rude dismissiveness that everyone gets from him, except for Zilinsky.
Point taken—but that only leaves me even more frustrated. “And what, pray tell in your endless, shared wisdom, am I to do instead?” I take a moment to stare at each of them. They look back with all the belligerent patience in the world—that I deserve, and way more than that. “Exactly what should I do? I can’t let it slide. That would look even more like the boss being lenient on his girl.”
“Nobody gives a shit about that,” Zilinsky lets me know. “Everyone gets it. She made a bad judgment call.”
I almost seethe as I respond. “She disobeyed a direct order.”
If anything, Zilinsky looks disappointed. “Yes, but nobody cares. Nobody expected her to suddenly go all ‘Yes, sir! No, sir!’ on you.” She follows that up with a tight-lipped smile. “I know that cuts your ego, but most of us don’t care. We’ve been away from regular military missions long enough to no longer see it as dishonorable to act in our best interest.” Her smile widens when I give her a withering stare.
“You have never not followed my orders,” I grate out. Perfect—they have to choose now to stage a mutiny?
“Because they usually make sense,” Romanoff chimes in, for the first time ever the voice of reason. “And you pay us to.”
When my accusing glare turns to Martinez, he looks vaguely uncomfortable but offers up a shrug. “Just because in your fantasy world she acts like the perfect toy soldier, we all know she’s not. Cho is incredibly sore about it, but the rest of us are okay with that. Since you technically have no right to call yourself our leader, it kind of fits that your woman is just as much of a headstrong bitch as you’re a demanding bastard.” I have no clue how he manages it, but that makes my anger recede rather than increase. His attention skips from me to the Rover, his expression turning grim. “The thing is, you two absolutely deserve each other, because next to you, I feel like she’s the only other person in the group who thinks she deserves to be punished for her stupidity. Not insubordination, mind you,” he stresses. “Only for endangering herself, the plan, and thus all of us.”
That is absolutely insane, but when I look at the other two, they both nod in agreement. “She thinks she stepped out of line and needs to be called out for it,” Romanoff offers.
“And exactly how am I supposed to do that?” I’m not even sure I’m the right one for the job. “You seem to agree that I can’t just dress her down, and honestly, I don’t trust myself with it right now.”
Romanoff chuffs, highly amused. “It won’t do either of you any good if you put her over your knee and spank her in front of everyone.” The other two idiots find that funny, of course.
Zilinsky finally takes pity on me. “I think we can agree that this is not about you, or us, but all about her, right?” I nod, if with as much hesitation as I can allow myself. “Then we need to do what she expects us to do. Which is not nothing,” she adds when I open my mouth to interrupt. “It needs to be personal, and it needs to stick. Words won’t. And you can’t embarrass her. Right now, she feels like a bungling child. She made a bad call, but it was a brave woman’s bad call.” Her eyes narrow mostly at Martinez and me. “What is it that you call this, what your stupid boys do in university?”
I give her my best “I got nothing” look back, while Martinez seems torn between being offended and utterly befuddled. “If this is a slur, I don’t get it.”
She grunts, exasperated. “The girls, too, I think, but the stereotypical idiocy is with the boys. When they want to join their weird clubs. When they get drunk and jump off houses.”
Martinez is still frowning. “Fraternities?” She nods. “You think some kind of hazing ritual?”
Zilinsky nods again, momentarily elated to be understood. “We all know she still doesn’t consider herse
lf a part of us. And now she fucked up, and if we handle this wrong, she’ll feel even more apart. This is the perfect solution to make her feel like she belongs. It needs to be quick, and it needs to hurt, but above all else, it needs to stick. I’m so fucking sick of constantly trying to build her up when all it takes for her to ignore her own progress is a stupid joke or a simple mistake that anyone in her place would have made.” Romanoff looks ready to offer up a suggestion, but she talks right over his grin. “Nothing that makes her feel stupid or ashamed, I already told you that. I know that if I leave this up to the lot of you, you’ll tease her until she can’t take it and runs off. What will that accomplish? That she knows in her head that she’s just a silly little girl to you. I know that you’d do the exact same thing if she were a man, but she doesn’t. She’s caught in her own narrative that she’s a nuisance, little more useful than that whore, and worth less than the college idiots because she’s smaller and she can’t run as fast because her legs are shorter. We need to stop pulling our punches around her because what we do out of understanding for her shortcomings is like a slap in the face for her.”
Silence falls as all of us consider. I’m surprised when Martinez is the first to speak up. “Maybe it’s just your perfect use of idioms, but what if we literally do that? Not pull our punches,” he suggests. He actually looks guilty explaining his statement. “I’m not saying we beat her up, but a physically violent response is something she expects, right? Only that we won’t do it, because she’s a girl, and she’s not one of us. So we do it.” He pauses, sighing heavily. “Man, that’s fucked up, but that’s all I got.”
Beyond Green Fields | Book 5 | Survive [A Post-Apocalyptic Anthology] Page 10