“Oh, nowhere important,” Joker answered. “I graduated high school early and signed up when I was seventeen. Been a Marine ever since.”
“You never went back home?” Little Joe asked.
“Nope. Nothing to go back to. What about you guys? I would’ve thought you guys might’ve come back on occasion, seeing as you were not that far away,” Joker commented.
Little Joe shrugged. “Like you said. Nothing to go back to.”
“Well, I’m glad you two volunteered for the mission,” Joker said.
Little Joe scoffed but said nothing.
“You guys never tried to go into Holston?”
“Dad and a couple of others tried it, but it was a no-go. I never heard the full story. You’ll have to ask him. Listen, if you’re going to stay awake, I’d like to get a couple of hours of sleep, if that’s okay.”
“Yeah, sure. I’ll take first watch. I’ll wake your dad in a few hours.”
“No, wake me. The old man needs his sleep,” Little Joe said.
“Sure, no problem.”
Joker spent the next three hours alternating between watching the stars and watching the zed. Little Joe was right, the zed somehow sensed their presence. He had to—why else was he doing nothing but walking up and down the road?
When he was having a hard time keeping his eyes open, he woke Little Joe.
“Is our spy still out there?” he asked.
Joker chuckled. “Yep. Wake us when the sky starts getting gray and we’ll get a move on.”
As Joker settled into his blankets, he realized Little Joe might’ve been on to something. That lone zed was keeping watch on them. The burning question in his brain was—why?
Chapter 11 – Lisandra
I lay in the darkness listening to Kelly breathing in a deep, steady rhythm. That was a good sign. Her job at Mount Weather was working with the kids in all its forms, from schoolteacher to daycare attendant. She was often paired with Janet because she was one of the few people that Janet could get along with. If that wasn’t hard enough, she also helped Lydia with the scheduling of work assignments for the rest of the Mount Weather personnel. Plus, she was the mother of three kids, which was, any parent would tell you, was a fulltime job.
By the way she was currently sleeping, I guessed she’d put in a hard day. There was only one problem; her head was lying in the crook of my shoulder and one of her legs was draped over me. This made getting out of bed without waking her all but impossible, but I had to do it anyway.
The Clay Fleming issue had put me behind in my day-today duties. I had a pile of work waiting on me, and if that wasn’t enough, I had an additional matter that I needed to sort out by the name of Lisa.
Lisandra Jane Dicus. My half-sister. Notice I did not say my beloved half-sister. She, her lover, and their two idiot friends had been trouble since the first day they had arrived. And, it was up to me to straighten it out.
I worked my way out of bed and walked into the main room of our suite. Booting up my laptop, I plugged in the flash drive given to me by Roscoe and Johnny G. There were a couple of word documents, a spreadsheet document, and a file of jpegs. I opened the spreadsheet first.
Page one had a list of the current population of Marcus Hook with accompanying demographics. Page two was the numbers on the diesel production, and page three was their food production and consumption, along with their water consumption. All the numbers looked where they should be, and in fact, their diesel production was two percentage points higher than projected.
I then opened the word document titled, “Dalton Pentecost Murder” and began reading. It started with a synopsis of the rape allegation, witness statements, and the subsequent events leading up to the death of Dalton Pentecost.
All of it ran close to what I already knew. The party, the party favors, the boys and girls pairing off. From what I read, it sounded like the party attendees were already in relationships, except for Dalton and Hermione. Two witnesses said they saw them kissing and rubbing on each other and had no doubt it was consensual. At some point, they left the party, but nobody seemed to know when or under what circumstances.
Clay was also interviewed. He said when he heard the rumors, the first thing he did was confront Hermione. She confirmed the rumors and reiterated Dalton raped her. Clay stormed out of their house and hunted Dalton down. He said it was solely to confront him about the rape. Hermione followed, begging Clay to stop. He found Dalton in his room. Dalton answered Clay’s angry knocks and the confrontation took place in the doorway.
Clay made the claim he stabbed Dalton in self-defense, but he was rather vague in the specifics. Hermione only said that her stepdad stabbed Dalton and refused to elaborate.
Johnny G went on to document people’s opinions of the matter, including his. He stated a day after the party, Dalton got back together with a girl he had been dating up until recently. He went on to speculate this may have been the motivation for Hermione to cry rape.
I closed the document and sat back in my chair. It was going to come down to the confrontation between Clay and Dalton. Did Clay kill Dalton in cold blood? In the heat of the moment? Or, was it a true act of self-defense? I had my opinions on it, but Clay Fleming’s fate was going to be decided by a jury of his peers and not by me.
Lucky for him.
I leaned forward, opened the jpeg file, and immediately became concerned. A massive blockade had been built along the east side of the Commodore Barry Bridge Road and north to I-95 where it continued west, encircling the Marcus Hook community. East of Marcus Hook were multiple metropolis cities, starting with Philadelphia. Once a month, Johnny G led scouting patrols into Philly. The pictures I was looking at were taken by the latest patrol.
Philly was loaded with potential resources. The problem was, there were thousands upon thousands of zeds nesting in the city. We had no idea how they were surviving until a year ago when a scout team recorded a group of zeds turning on three child zeds and eating them. Zed cannibalism. It was the first we’d seen it and it was both revolting and fascinating.
The teams were unable to exit their vehicles, which were commonly called monster trucks because they had lift kits and oversized tires. It made it easier to run over zeds without getting stuck.
We’d been wanting to get both Philly and Baltimore stabilized for a few years now, but the cities were still infested with zeds and our ammunition supply was limited. We were certain there was an abundance of resources, but our attempts were problematic. Nobody could go in on foot or horseback, and the noise of the vehicles was like a zed magnet. The lack of industrial noise or the ambient hum of cars made the world a quieter place, but it also made the sound of a single motor vehicle driving along a road reverberate across the countryside like the beating of an Indian’s tom-tom.
I read some more and took a few notes before showering and dressing. I slipped out of the door quietly and headed down the hall. It was time to address the issue with my half-sister and her white trash friends. I went to her suite and stood in front of the door for a moment. These suites were highly sought after in the Mount Weather community. I skirted the waiting list and assigned them one of the three-bedroom suites. I’d gotten a lot of criticism for that act, justly deserved, but I wanted the best for my sister. It was a decision I regretted.
I started with a gentle knock. The hallways reverberated noises, especially knocking on a door, so I did not want to unnecessarily wake up the neighbors. Unfortunately, it didn’t wake up anyone on the other side of the door either.
After several seconds of repeated knocking, Frazier finally opened the door. His hair was disheveled and his face puffy. He was wearing nothing but some old faded underwear. He scowled in irritation.
“What the hell?” he grumbled.
“I need you and Lisa to meet me at the cafeteria. We are going to have a long-overdue conversation and it cannot be postponed any further. Don’t be late.”
I did not wait for an answer, turned on my heel, and
headed to the cafeteria. There were only one or two people there. They were drinking hot tea and conversing among themselves. We said our good mornings and I sat at my usual table. Lisandra and Frazier came strolling in forty-five minutes later. I’m sure they were late on purpose, an act of defiance normally performed by petulant children. Frazier made a point of jerking the chair out from under the table and plopping into it before fixing me with another scowl.
“Alright, what’s so important that you had to wake us up so damn early?” he demanded.
“I’m giving you guys notice that you’ll be moving out of Mount Weather,” I said.
“Says who?” Frazier demanded.
“Says me,” I said. “For the record, this was discussed in a staff meeting and a vote was taken. The decision was unanimous. I told them I would take care of it.”
Frazier smirked. “So, you think you have the power to kick us out?”
“I do,” I said. “Now, I know you’re thinking you have a choice in this matter, but you don’t.”
“Why, Zach?” Lisa asked. She looked a little shell-shocked, like I was ambushing her.
“You know why. Ever since the four of you have arrived, I have tried to accommodate each of you. Do you think everyone gets to live in a four-bedroom suite the way you guys have? No. But I got it for you. One would think you guys would be grateful, but you’ve done your best to be antagonizing pricks to everyone who live here, including me. I’ve had complaints from a lot of people. The latest complaint is from Lydia. She said you threatened to assault her.”
“She’s a bitch,” Lisa said. “She’s put us on some kind of bullshit cleaning duty every day this week.”
“Cleaning details are a necessary part of Mount Weather, and they’re usually four-person jobs, so she makes assignments where the four of you are together. Do you know why? Because nobody else wants to work with any of you.”
She knew I was right but felt the need to rationalize their behavior. “This place is full of uppity assholes, especially Lydia.”
“It’s her job to mete out work assignments, Lisa,” I said. “It may not sound like much, but it is a difficult job and she has performed wonderfully.”
“You’re the one who invited us to stay here,” she retorted.
“Yes, I did.”
“Why?”
“Because I wanted you to stay here. I wanted to get to know you, form a brother-sister relationship and all of that sappy stuff.”
She stared and remained silent. Frazier scoffed, like he thought I was being disingenuous or something. I ignored him and kept talking to Lisa.
“So, like I said, a vote was taken. You guys are out of here. Now, you can pack up what you on and hit the road, but I think you four should set up a place you can call your own.”
Frazier scoffed. “Yeah, let’s call a realtor and set up an appointment.”
“As it happens, I have a place picked out for you guys. It’s close enough where you can come visit, yet far enough away where you guys can have your own independence.”
Lisa looked over at Frazier. “Zach and I are going for a walk. Alone.”
We’d left Frazier sitting at the table and walked outside.
“I don’t like the way we’re being treated,” she said.
“Look, Lisa, you have to admit you four don’t play well with others, and that’s the nicest way I can put it,” I said.
“Well, the people here haven’t been very nice to us either,” she retorted.
“Then this is for the best. Let’s get you guys out of here and into your own house. How about we go have a look at that house I was talking about? It’s not that far from here and if you guys don’t like it, there are a couple of others I have in mind.”
She frowned. “I don’t like the way we’re being treated. You are basically evicting us.”
I held back the growing frustration and tried a different tack.
“But you’ve already admitted you don’t like it here.”
She stopped walking and stared pointedly. “These people are no good, Zach.”
I shook my head. “I won’t even pretend to agree with you, Lisa. There are some good people here. Granted, there are a few I don’t like, but there are a lot of good people here. People I like and people whom I depend on.”
She scowled at me. “You sound just like one of those politicians you’re always hanging out with.”
“Probably, but let’s not reassign blame. This is your fault. If you guys had made an effort to get along with everyone, it would’ve never come to this. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry this has not worked out.”
“Yeah, well, you didn’t really to seem to put forth much effort,” she said.
She was looking away when she said it. I gently placed my hands on her shoulders and made her faced me. She was tall for a woman; six feet with rather broad shoulders and dirty blonde hair. She resembled me in the face, but that was it.
“I want you to listen to me. Maybe I wasn’t around as much as you wanted, but whenever I was, you put up walls, you made disparaging remarks about my wife and you ignored my kids, like you did not want any kind of connection with them. What kind of effort did you expect me to make?”
She was glaring at me, for a moment, but then she broke eye contact and stared at her shoes.
“Where is this house you’re talking about?” she finally asked.
“It’s about fifteen miles from here. It’s secluded, but there’s a small community of survivors who live about five miles from there. They’re likeable people, but they won’t bother you guys. I figure that’s how you’d want it.”
“When do we go see it?” she asked.
“How about after lunch,” I suggested.
“I’m sure Trey and Tory will want to come too.”
“Yeah, sure,” I said. “You guys meet me at the motor pool at thirteen hundred hours.”
She gave me an indifferent nod and walked off. I glanced at my watch and hustled down to my office. I had five hours to catch up on my duties, which might work if nobody interrupted me.
Chapter 12 – House Hunting
“It’s about time,” Frazier grumbled as I walked up. The four of them were sitting outside of the motor pool. The expression of impatience was clear on all of them, like I purposely kept them waiting. I won’t say I did it on purpose, but I didn’t exactly get in any hurry to join them either.
“Yeah, sorry about that. The morning meeting went on longer than expected,” I replied. “Have you signed out a vehicle?”
Frazier cast a scowl toward the motor pool’s garage area. “Those two wetbacks think they own everything with wheels around here. They wouldn’t let us have shit.”
“They are responsible for every vehicle in our inventory, so yeah, in a manner of speaking, they do own them. And, by the way, Jorge and Josue are close friends of mine. Squash those derogatory names.”
I walked through the open bay door without waiting for Frazier or the other two stooges. Jorge and Sammy were under the hood of a Hummer while Josue watched them work. As I approached, I could hear them chuckling about something.
“What’s up, guys?” I asked. Jorge straightened and wiped his hands with a rag.
“I know she’s your sister, but the sooner those pendejos leave, the better for all of us,” he said. Josue gave a vigorous nod of agreement.
“Yeah, I understand,” I said under my breath.
Jorge gave me a sympathetic nod and shut the hood on the Hummer. “She’s ready, and I already have her signed out to you.” He then leaned closer and whispered, “I have a gun stored under the driver’s seat and under the hood, in case they try something.”
That was thoughtful of him, though I always carried a compact 380 stuffed down in the crotch of my pants. Only a few people knew I did it. Kelly always kidded me, saying the only reason I did it was to make my package look bigger.
As far as protection against zeds or hostiles, I had another handgun holstered on my hip. The other
four were also armed. Due to our critical ammunition shortage, we were limited to nine-millimeter and twenty-two calibers in handguns. Hopefully, that would change soon.
“Alright, let’s get going,” I said.
Tory mumbled a snide remark, but they loaded up without any further complaints. Frazier directed Lisa to sit in the backseat and he took the front. Yet another reason I couldn’t wait to get rid of the asshole.
“Like I said earlier, the house I have in mind is fifteen miles from here. It’s not a bad drive and there’ve been no zed sightings lately, but keep your eyes open regardless.”
“If we spot any, are we going to kill them?” Frazier asked.
“Not unless we have no other choice,” I said.
That earned me a disdainful scoff. I glanced over at him. If it were Fred, or pretty much anyone else, I’d give the go-ahead. Perhaps even go hands on and kill them with our knives, but I didn’t trust these men. They would either waste ammunition or perhaps I might accidentally on purpose get hit by friendly fire. I ignored his antics and continued.
“If you don’t like this house, I have others in mind, but they are a little further out.”
“Nothing close by, huh?” Trey asked from the back seat.
“Nothing in good shape,” I replied. “They would require extensive work to make them livable. The one I’m going to show you is impressive. It’s a nice house on a couple of acres. It sits on a bluff overlooking the Shenandoah River and is surrounded by a lot of open land. Back before, I’d guess it would have sold for somewhere around a million or more. It only needs some good old TLC and it’ll be a great place to live.”
I noticed the three in the back were listening intently. Frazier was another story.
“Yeah, we’ll see,” he replied in a snide tone.
“How did you pick out this house you’re going to show us?” Lisa asked.
“A scout team found it last year. I did a follow-up inspection back in March after the bad weather cleared up. I’ve been trying to find someone to live in it ever since.”
Zombie Rules (Book 7): The Fifteens Page 6