Beyond Green Fields | Book 5 | Survive [A Post-Apocalyptic Anthology]

by Lecter, Adrienne

  I wait for other suggestions but they won’t come. That much is obvious from the way they both nod their agreement. My anger finds a new target at the very idea of anyone hitting her. “I’m not going to do it,” I say, hoping that everyone else will see the wisdom in my words and join me.

  “Then don’t,” Zilinsky says, shooting down my hopes. “It would be problematic if you did, anyway. You’re her…” I think she wants to say “boyfriend” but stops herself when she realizes how utterly ridiculous that notion is. “You’re our leader,” she points out instead. “You can do all the ‘I’m so disappointed because you ignored a direct order’ shit until you’re green in the face for all I care, and she’ll agree with me. She’ll never completely accept your authority, and I think that’s good for you both. This is about the rest of us. Unless things drastically change in the future, there will always be that same separation—you, and us. She needs to belong to us, beyond a sliver of a doubt for her.”

  I hate to do it—and I wait until Romanoff and Martinez have agreed—before I nod. “And how will you get everyone else on board? I don’t think Burns will readily agree to this bullshit.”

  Zilinsky has an almost nasty smile for me. “I will reason with them and explain. And even if they disagree with me, they will do it.”

  “And why is that, exactly?”

  Her smile widens. “Because nobody fucking disobeys my orders.”

  It rankles—somewhat—but I have to admit, she’s right.

  In short order, Zilinsky and Martinez hatch out their brainchild of a plan—Martinez will pretend to guard Bree while she cleans up, giving us ample time to convince everyone of following along with it. I hate the idea, and even more so when Zilinsky suggests that we first need to make her so uncomfortable and feel so small that she’ll have to stop putting up with our shit. But even as I try to interject my protest, I know in my heart that Zilinsky is right. Bree is one thing above all else in these matters—predictable.

  So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that—unlike with our mission to loot the town at noon—things unfold as planned. It takes only a few threats to get everyone on board. Burns commits after Martinez explains our reasoning. I’m a little surprised that Bates quite vehemently protests until Zilinsky threatens to cut his balls off. I’ve never asked, but his reaction makes me think that there’s something lurking in his past that makes our suggestion look like we asked him to shoot a litter of puppies. Eventually, he agrees, if grudgingly. From their reactions, I can tell that several of the guys who haven’t formed quite that tight a bond with Bree aren’t going to go hard on her. On some level, that’s a relief to me, but knowing what’s looming ahead negates most of that effect.

  Since Madeline and her kids barely left their car to get food, they are of no concern to us now. The college kids made themselves scarce as soon as they realized something is going on, and Romanoff persuades them—gently—that it’s in their best interest if they stay out of this.

  Bree takes fucking forever to clean her gear, and when she finally joins us, everyone is ready. It takes her exactly one look at where her dinner is waiting for her, complete with a plate and cutlery, for her to get antsy. Before, she looked guilty as fuck and uncomfortable. Now, unease quickly gives way to a mix of dread and indignation—which means she’s acting exactly as we’ve all known she would. She’s defensive but doesn’t take long to stand up for herself, pleading her case, arguing about the points that really aren’t fair. She accepts responsibility for her actions, but she’s quick to rail at the “special treatment” that’s absolutely meant to be insulting. I almost grin when she protest that she’s “one of you!” and means it.

  I’m keeping my trap shut until I absolutely can’t hold back anymore. I know I sound pissed off and furious, but by now most of that anger is fake, the real deal having died down once my brain caught up with what needs to happen. I fucking hate this with a vengeance.

  Hearing Zilinsky finally put an end to this shit by telling Bree that she needs to make amends is almost a relief—if not for what I know comes next. Bree doesn’t hesitate for a second as she spreads her arms, making a beckoning motion with both hands. “Bring it on.” Like everyone else, I can tell that it’s all bravado, but underneath there’s iron conviction to see this through until the end—and I can tell that she trusts us not to endanger her safety. She trusts that whatever we have planned will be awful, but it will let her limp away in victory with her head held high.

  That, right there, is no longer the woman who was troubled to realize we have a one-in-eight gender disparity. She’s no longer afraid she will be dismissed; mistreated, raped, used up and left by the wayside once we are done with her. Yes, this situation is fucked up—and even though she feels this is necessary, I can tell that, on some level, she knows that her inane expectations of herself are to blame for this, not our collective need for bloody vengeance.

  And none of that helps the emotional gut punch I feel when Zilinsky socks her a good one, right in the center of her stomach. If not for Zilinsky’s glare in my direction while Bree remains standing, hunched over, oblivious to our exchange, I would have called it then and there. Zilinsky sits down next to me again, conveniently where she can grab me before I make it to my feet.

  I fucking hate this—every second of it—and before long, Zilinsky has a death-grip on my arm, her fingers digging deep enough to bruise. It seems like I’m the only one who thinks this was the worst idea of the century, but I can’t very well call an end to it now. But I want to, with every fiber of my being—and the worst part is, I can’t let Bree see my anguish. I doubt I’m fooling anyone else, but to her, I need to pretend like this was my plan; that I sanctioned this absolute bullshit.

  As soon as the last of them is done, I’m on my feet, dragging Zilinsky along for a step or two until she finally lets go. Bree is so out of it that she looks barely conscious, but when she sees me step up to her, I can tell that she’s steeling herself. That hurts—more than it has a right to; I’m well aware of the fact that I’ve never given her a reason to doubt I will literally punch her lights out now. I hate that she believes this. What I hate even more is that I need to keep up the farce—and I doubt that I’ll ever be able to drop it, because I can’t unless she’s beyond caring about it, and then it’s the same… because then she’ll be just as hard and dead inside as I am. I know that’s not entirely true—the fact that I seem to be in greater anguish than she is right now is underlining that quite nicely—but it’s true enough that I don’t want to see that day to ever roll around.

  I wait until she’s readied herself for whatever may come—and I’m sure she’s terribly disappointed when I kiss her instead, before taking the light load of her body from Burns and Romanoff’s shoulders.

  My grin is real when she blinks at me and grinds out, “You’re such a fucking asshole.”

  So true—“I’m in best company then”—and I carry her off to the Rover, ignoring the thunder and rain coming down on us. I’m just about done getting her inside when I look back to where Zilinsky is still standing, staring after me—and I don’t miss the warning in her glare.

  No, Bree isn’t the only one who had a lesson to learn today. If anything, my lesson still grates going down. I’m responsible for her safety—and I screwed up today, massively. I knew that she wasn’t one of my soldiers, trained or otherwise. I knew that she was—and likely always will be—a wildcard, predictable but prone to act against what I consider operational security. I knew this, and I not just underestimated her, I didn’t plan for any possible contingencies. And Zilinsky’s glare makes it quite plain that if I ever make her force another lesson like this down my throat, it won’t stay at me licking my emotional wounds.

  Watching Bree getting beat up hurt on so many levels—but it’s only now that I realize the true meaning of the warning I’ve just received. My mistakes likely won’t get me killed. I’m not invincible, but I’m a damn hard bastard to kill, and I know my limits. No, my mista
kes will get Bree killed, sooner or later, if I keep making them. And that realization scares the living daylights out of me.

  As soon as I’m inside the car, I pull Bree against me, doing my very best to ignore her inevitable wince. The fact that there’s no reservation in her motions, no tension in her shoulders as she molds herself against me is another nail in my coffin. She’s tired as hell and not exactly hiding her discomfort, but still she chatters away, her teasing putting me at ease…

  Until she lies. “I won’t do it again. Promise.”

  I take my time formulating my response. Until a few minutes ago, I would have said something along the lines of “like hell you will” or maybe even threatened her—but she deserves the truth, just as I had it coming. “Yes, you will, because that’s the kind of person you are,” I state as neutrally as possible. It still comes out slightly accusatory, but as I listen to my own words, I realize that I mean them—and I’m okay with that. There’s a lot I won’t tolerate in other people, and even less in a woman I consider my equal and want to spend the rest of my life with—but being her true, real self will always be something I respect. Even if I hate her guts for it.

  Of course, first she is annoyed, then slightly guilty again, and eventually, we drop the point with more joking. Five minutes later, she’s fast asleep in my arms. I pretend to doze until I’m sure she’s out cold, then open my eyes and stare into her face from up close.

  I almost lost her today.

  Almost lost her because I was cocky, and stupid, and she would have died thinking it was her own fault.

  Fear of a very different kind than when I was surrounded by zombies, frantically trying to get to her, settles into the pit of my stomach now. Sure, I would survive losing her now—but I’d never get over it, least of all if it was my fault. I don’t think she understands. Fuck, I don’t understand it myself.

  I don’t get any sleep that night. I spend endless hours being an utter creep, watching her sleep, every so often gently touching her hair or shifting my hand where it rests on her warm body. She doesn’t so much as wake once, which, considering her exhaustion and level of discomfort, is both making sense as much as it doesn’t. It takes me a while to figure out what is strange about it—like all of us, surviving the zombie apocalypse has turned her into a very light sleeper. Yet tonight, snuggled against me, she barely rouses when she shifts in pain. She feels safe, protected—just when she should have all the reasons in the world not to.

  That deep level of trust she has in me humbles me.

  It also makes me consider that she’s, for all intents and purposes, just a little insane.

  It doesn’t sound like a healthy combination, but maybe it’s exactly what will get her through this hell?

  I don’t know, and that scares me. It was just a few days ago when I gave her that great speech about no place on earth being safe anymore, yet here she is, her mind at ease, while I’m crawling up the walls. If not the very definition of insanity, I don’t know what this is.

  Dispatch

  Dispatch: Time for some R&R - Nate's POV, middle of GF#4: Extinction

  So this is our brave new world—the first thing they do is ostracize the people they need to survive. Makes perfect sense. But I get it. As much as I intellectually want to protest the action, it’s a very human reaction, and I can’t fault them for it.

  Maybe getting some good old R&R will make that bitter pill just a little easier to swallow.

  Dispatch

  So this is our brave new world—the first thing they do is ostracize the people they need to survive. Makes perfect sense. But I get it. As much as I intellectually want to protest the action, it’s a very human reaction, and I can’t fault them for it.

  Things could have gone worse. A lot worse. I knew shit was about to hit the fan when they whipped out the blood tests, but by then it was too late. If I’d spoken up, I’m sure that would have been the invitation some of the guards had been waiting for. Enough of them recognized me on sight that testing me—and Zilinsky, Romanoff, and probably Burns as well—was a matter of show rather than discovery. When they separated the six of us from the rest—at gunpoint no less—I was sure that things would take a turn for the worse. That’s why I didn’t hold Zilinsky back when she went ballistic—although she was passably gentle with them, only punching out two of the guards and leaving no permanent damage. Then they locked us up in a pen fortified with a wire fence only, and I realized that it had all been for show—because nobody knowing what we are capable of would have seriously believed that could have held us, unless we chose to cooperate. Which was exactly what happened.

  Do I resent being branded like cattle? Yes, but the fact that not a single one of my people even so much as hesitated to join us more than made up for it. And, what can I say? It gave Bree the perfect opportunity to continue the ego trip of her life and bring it to a magnificent conclusion by signing her name on the dotted line right next to mine—literally and figuratively. Seeing the shit-eating grin on her face she’s still sporting hours later, reveling in what, to her, must be her newly minted status as pirate queen, smoothes the last of my ruffled feathers.

  Reaping the physical rewards of her being high on her own supply that night does away with the last of my resentment. Gone is the insecurity; the doubt, her sense of not quite belonging. I’m sure she’s still raw about losing Bates, but she has definitely switched over to the life-affirming, can’t-hold-me-back track. Watching her trying to console her grief by finding the solution at the bottom of a bottle of booze was hard. Everything inside of me screamed to knock that shit out of her hands, grab her shoulders, and shake some sense into her. Fact is, I knew she needed to get through it on her own; to learn to deal with the inevitability of loss—loss that left her hands bloody and her soul stained. Just like she needed to actively decide to throw her lot in with us for good. I’m glad that she slid through both gauntlets, if not with grace, then with a lot of conviction, coming out stronger on the other side.

  Even she, who had a year to get comfortable with the concept—albeit without knowing the details—needed a little while to come to grips with what is going on with us. I wasn’t exactly worried I’d lose her to the realization that I was neither kidding nor exaggerating when I told her that I’m a monster, but it sure feels good to be accepted with all my flaws. I’ve resented lying to her by omission for a while now. If anything, the way she’s riding me hard only proves that she gets off on having tamed herself a true beast. Can’t resent that.

  As necessary as it was for everyone to lay low for a few days and revel in what counts as civilization now, I’m more than happy to be out in the wild again, and between the twelve of us and the six cars, it’s easy to find shelter for the night, every night. Sometimes we crash in an abandoned farmhouse or barn. Sometimes we rough it out in the open, using what shelter nature built for us. Since we now have communication gear and have stocked up on weapons and ammo, we can risk hitting a mall after discussing with the people of Dispatch what they need the most—and what works best as bartering options should we want to slum it in another settlement anytime soon. Looting a few single stores goes flawlessly. The mall, not so much, when we get cocky, spread out too far—oh, and Romanoff, ever the asshole, has to unleash an entire mob of undead previously locked away by someone much smarter than us. We still end up with sacks of loot and that insane high that comes from beating the odds once again.

  Then we run into what we quickly title a streak of shamblers—a group numbering in the thousands, a true menace for anything not fast and stealthy enough to get away unnoticed. I don’t like how the zombies are not just showing truly sentient behavior but how they are developing herd tactics. Knowing that a good chunk of the serum program soldiers must have turned into the super-juiced, hard-to-kill ones is bad enough. Seeing the whole lot of them congregate and establish their place as apex predators is worse. That ensures survival—if you want to call it that—for all except the weakest ones, adding years, if not
decades, to my estimates of how long they will be a problem for us. Until we hit Sioux Falls to do some investigating, I’ve still been holding out hope that they are a temporary issue that resolves itself soon, given a few hot summers and cold winters. With no reliable population numbers, it’s impossible to know with certainty, but they sure as hell look smart enough to me to remain a constant bother for decades.

  I fucking hate not having intel beyond our own observations. Luckily, there’s a solution for that: ask other assholes like us who are slumming it outside the cozy palisades of the settlements. Just our luck that we’re barely out of the zone of devastation left by the streak when we get the news that more of them are harassing one of the nearby towns that has become desperate enough to call for help—and another scavenger group has already signed up for the job but are requesting further assistance. This sounds like the perfect opportunity for us. Worst that can happen is we abandon the job and make a run for it, particularly if the Chargers turn out to be the wrong kind of assholes. Dispatch has them on record as good guys and it’s us, actually, who are the unproven, unknown variable in the race.

  As it turns out, my expectations are uncannily close to the truth—Jason is a good guy and a great leader, his men hardened soldiers who know exactly what they are doing. And the settlement people turn out to be ungrateful assholes, which gives Bree another prime opportunity to get her pirate-queen stint on. I’m glad they let us dress again after forcing us to strip down for the mandatory decontamination bleach bath; else it would have been all too plain to the world just how much I’m enjoying her speech and no-nonsense demands. Just my luck that she’s still raw over losing Bates, the scabbed-over wound freshly torn up by Jason losing one of his men.

  So instead of fucking each other’s brains out, we do a short investigation trip while the rest wait for the inevitable death of the unlucky bastard—and end up returning, drenched in zombie guts, much to Bree’s constant complaint. It only makes sense to try to make up for inflicting that on her by getting what’s supposed to be some real R&R—at Dispatch, by-now fabled fortress of scavengers.