That elicited more laughter. Nikki seemed embarrassed now.
“I’m not looking for sex. I want Fred to teach me about survival. Everyone knows about his skills and I want to learn them.”
Rachel patted Fred on his backside. “Oh, you don’t even know half of his skills.”
While they laughed again at Fred’s expense, Fred glanced around, as if trying to find a way to escape his embarrassment. He spotted Ruby staring out a window at him. When she saw him looking, she lingered a moment longer before disappearing. Her stare was that of pure hatred. He instinctively knew there was going to be more trouble from those two.
“What about it, stud?” Rachel asked.
“What’s that?” Fred asked.
“I said, do you want to take on a new protégé?”
Fred looked at Nikki again, who met his gaze with a challenging stare of her own.
“Like I mentioned, I’ve been teaching Sam, but I don’t think I’m doing all that great,” he said. “I don’t think I’d do you any good either.”
“No offense, Mister Fred, but I’m going to disagree with you. I heard one of the teachers talking about Sam this morning at breakfast and she said he’s going to be an excellent engineer, thanks to your math tutoring. Besides, he’s not going to be traipsing around the countryside hunting zeds. He’s going to be home with his girl and their child and in bed every night where he belongs. I want you to teach me about living out there with all the zeds and other hostiles.”
Rachel grabbed Fred’s hand and squeezed. Before he could help it, he winced in pain. The others noticed.
“Let me guess. You hurt your hand in this fight I heard about,” Rachel said.
“He hurt both of them,” Nikki said. “I saw him rubbing them during the mission briefing.”
“The knuckles are just a little sore,” Fred replied. “Nothing a little ice won’t cure.”
Rachel stared at Fred a long moment before turning to Nikki.
“Serena’s baby is with the grandmother at the moment, but we’re going to get her and go to the house. We have a venison stew on the stove and a fresh loaf of bread. We also have some homemade wine that I currently cannot drink for obvious reasons. Why don’t you join us?”
“I’d love to,” Nikki said before smirking at Fred.
Chapter 18 – Home Cooking
Nikki was impressed. The house, barn, and greenhouse were surrounded by multiple layers of barbed and concertina wire. An armored vehicle could get through it, but the house itself was surrounded by thick barrier walls. The roof was metal, and the house was brick, which would make it almost impossible to firebomb.
When they arrived, Nikki noticed Fred was a bustle of activity. He hurried inside and began straightening up before stoking the fireplace and the potbelly stove in the kitchen. He then excused himself, remarking the livestock needed tending to, and hurried off to the barn. Sammy followed. Nikki wanted to join him, she loved horses, but she understood she needed to ingratiate herself with Rachel first.
“Come join us,” Rachel invited and led Nikki to the kitchen table. Serena sat with her newborn daughter while Rachel went to the stove.
“She’s cute as a button. What’s her name?” Nikki asked.
“Kaitlin,” Serena said. “She’s two weeks old today. My mom wanted to name her Rochelle. We vetoed that idea.”
“Yeah, that was a good decision. Do you like to cook, Nikki?” Rachel asked as she stirred the pot of stew.
“I’m decent at it, nothing special,” Nikki said. “If you want to sit down and rest, I can keep an eye on the food.”
Rachel smiled. “I’m fine. Besides, I think you’d rather be out in the barn with Fred and the horses.”
Serena laughed. “You’d have to fight Sammy for his attention. Why do you want to go traipsing out in the wilderness with Fred anyway?”
“It’s not my style to stay cooped up in a walled compound,” Nikki replied. “I like to hunt and fish. I want to be able to go out on my own and survive if I have to. I mean, I already can, but I want to be at Mister Fred’s level. I heard he once rode over three hundred miles on horseback in a couple of weeks. Is that true?”
“It’s true,” Rachel said. “That was after he was shot and left for dead. There’s a lot about Fred McCoy that most people don’t know about.” She blew a tuft of hair out of her face. “Hell, there’s a lot about him even I don’t know.”
“Tell us something about him,” Nikki urged.
She walked over to the table and sat down. After a moment, she gave a small smile. “Here’s one only a few people know. When the plague burned through America, Fred was living in Tennessee. He had a daughter named Betsy. I think she was nineteen or twenty and she was living in Los Angeles. He wanted to go to her, but with zeds everywhere, he knew the odds were impossible to travel across the country. It gnawed at his conscience for a long time. Finally, he couldn’t stand it anymore and he went to find her.
“And he did,” Rachel said. “But she was infected.”
“Wait, you said he was living in Tennessee when it went bad, right?” she asked.
Rachel nodded. Nikki frowned. “How far is it from Tennessee to Los Angeles?”
“About two thousand miles,” Rachel said.
“So, you’re telling me he travelled two thousand miles in zombie infested America to find his daughter?” Nikki asked.
“He did. That’s how he met Sarah.”
“Who’s Sarah?” Nikki asked.
“Sarah Fowkes,” she said. “Fred met her at an air base in Oklahoma. She was a major in the Air Force back then. They struck up a friendship and he convinced her to fly him to Los Angeles. He found her, still in her apartment, but she’d become infected. Fred killed her and then they flew back to Oklahoma. They’d become an item and he stayed with her for a while, but he was homesick and asked Sarah to come back to Tennessee with him.”
“Did she?” Nikki asked.
“Not right then. She felt she had a duty to stay at Tinker Air Base. She stayed about six months before deciding to rejoin Fred. She loaded up a military vehicle and headed east. She found Sammy and two women named Kate and Kyra Redbank somewhere along the interstate. They were stranded and starving. Sarah rescued them and convinced them to come with her to Tennessee.”
“I’ve met them,” Nikki said. She didn’t say it out loud, but she had an instant disliking to the two women. Rachel seemed to sense this and gave a knowing nod.
“So, they show up and she’s told Fred is dead. It’s a long story, but the group of people Zach was living with were ambushed and he was shot. Zach and his kids were abducted. It’s a long crazy story. I’ll give you the short version. Even though Fred was shot through the chest, he lived. Not only did he live, when he found out Kelly, Zach, and Zach’s kids were alive and living at Mount Weather, he hopped on a horse and rode up.”
“That’s the three hundred mile ride you heard about,” Serena said.
“Yep,” Rachel said. “You ride horses a lot, right?”
“I do,” Nikki said. “I know what you’re thinking, and I’d have to say riding three hundred miles on a horse after being shot would be tough. Really tough.”
“Yep,” Rachel said.
“I’ve heard some of this story,” Nikki said. “This is where some crazy Marine Colonel had a bunch of people murdered and then kidnapped Zach and his children.”
“Yep. Once I give birth, I’ll tell you the whole story over a bottle of wine one night,” Rachel said. “It’s like a soap opera.”
Nikki laughed. “You got it.”
“Tell her about that man who was smarting off during training,” Serena suggested.
“Yeah, there was this young man who was going through some of the mandatory training at Weather. He wasn’t listening to the instructors, one of whom was Fred, and then he made a few smartassed remarks.”
“What’d Fred do?” Nikki asked.
“He shot the tips of his ears off,” Rachel said. �
��But only a little bit of skin off the top.”
“Holy shit,” Nikki exclaimed. “I bet nobody smarted off to him after that.”
Rachel and Serena laughed. “You got that right,” Rachel said.
“Alright, so, when Fred learns Zach and family are still alive, he comes up to Mount Weather.”
“He did,” Rachel said. “Now here’s another story about Fred. You see, he and Sarah had been an item back when they met each other in Oklahoma, but they separated. When she finally came looking for him in Tennessee, she was told he’d been killed. It wasn’t too long before she and I became an item.”
Nikki stared a long moment to see if Rachel was joking. “Really?” she finally asked.
Rachel smiled. “Yes, we did.”
“How did Fred take it when he found out?” she asked.
“He was a gentleman about it. She was a wonderful woman and Fred wanted her to be happy, but I knew she was in love with Fred and Fred was in love with her.”
“What did you do?” Nikki asked.
“I told them they belonged together,” she said.
“Wow.”
“Yeah, that was two days before she was killed,” Rachel said. Suddenly, her eyes started watering. She stood with a little effort due to the pregnancy. “Excuse me,” she murmured and hurried from the room.
Nikki looked at Serena. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to upset her with all my questions.”
“It’s alright,” Serena said.
“Can I ask how she was killed?”
“There was this group of thugs who called themselves the Blackjacks who had wandered into the area. Fred and Sarah were helping a couple who had moved into a house near Mount Weather. One of the Blackjacks shot Sarah with a sniper rifle.”
“Damn,” Nikki muttered.
“Yeah, but Fred got payback. He hunted them all down and killed them.”
“How many were there?” she asked.
“Thirteen,” Serena replied.
“Thirteen? Holy hell.”
“Oh, there’s more. He scalped them.”
Nikki’s eyes widened. “What? He scalped them?”
“Yeah, all thirteen of them.”
“Holy hell,” she muttered again.
“Yeah. Mister Fred has always been kind toward me. He’s nice to everyone who deserves it, but don’t get on his bad side. D-Day is lucky he still has his hair.”
Nikki slapped her knee. “No shit.” She then glanced down the hallway and lowered her voice. “How did the two of them end up together?”
Serena smiled. “Rachel decided she liked him, and that was that.”
Nikki laughed now.
“How old are you?” Serena asked.
“Nineteen, how about you?”
“Sixteen.” She held Kaitlin close and bounced her baby on her knee. “I know, I’m a little young to be having a kid, but things happen, you know?”
Nikki nodded.
“What’s a soap opera?” Serena asked.
Nikki smiled. “Back before there were these shows on TV that were called soap operas.”
Serena nodded and was about to say something else, but Rachel walked back into the kitchen and sat.
“Sorry about that. I loved Sarah with all my heart. It’s still hard for me.”
“I understand,” Nikki said.
“So, I heard you say you’re nineteen?”
“Yeah. I was nine when shit hit the fan,” Nikki said.
“Tell us a little about yourself,” Rachel urged.
“My parents became infected almost immediately. I was rescued by some neighbors. They still live in Shenandoah. Oh, and you don’t have to worry about me having eyes for Fred. I mean, he’s old enough to be my dad.”
“Mine too,” Rachel said and burst out in giggles at her own joke.
“How old are you, if you don’t mind my asking?” Nikki asked.
“Just turned twenty-nine,” Rachel answered, and then gave a wink.
Nikki nodded and smiled, although she suspected Rachel was fibbing a little. It caused her to ponder the considerable age difference between her and Fred, but she could see how a woman, even a woman in her twenties, could fall for him. He had rugged good looks and she saw him fight; the man was strong and tough as nails. And from the stories, the man really was a bad ass. She briefly thought about what it’d be like to sleep with him, but quickly quashed it. She wasn’t after Fred for a sexual relationship. She’d already said that to Rachel and repeated it. Rachel laughed.
“Oh, sweetie, I’m not worried about that. Fred is old school. Old, old school. He’d never cheat on me.”
“It must be cool having that kind of man,” Nikki said.
“It is, but I was wondering about you. Why are you single and why don’t you have a kid or two already?” Rachel asked. “You’re a good-looking woman. You must have plenty of men chasing after you.” Rachel then gave one of her mischievous grins. “Or women.”
Nikki shrugged. “I was sixteen when I had my first real boyfriend. He was a typical immature asshole and dumped me about a week after he took my virginity. About a year later, I met Colton, and he was great. We knew we were meant for each other and had made so many plans for our future. One day we were out hunting, and a damned snake spooked his horse. It bucked and threw him. He hit his head and got knocked out. He came to a couple of minutes later and I thought he was going to be okay, but about an hour later he had a seizure, passed out, and never woke up.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Rachel said.
“Thanks,” Nikki said.
She thought about Colton often. It was good between them, most of the time. Both had fiery tempers though. She absently rubbed her nose, remembering how it got broken.
“Since then, I haven’t really settled down with anyone, man or woman,” she said with a small smile. “I’m sure I will one day, but in the meantime, I want to learn everything I can about survival.”
Rachel nodded in understanding. “If anyone could teach you, it’d be Fred.”
“Or Zach, but he’s not here,” Serena lamented. “I wish they’d come back. Nikki, did you ever meet Zach and his wife?”
“I met Zach one day, but not his wife,” Nikki said. “I’ve heard a lot about him too.”
“Yeah, he’s something else. I miss all of them terribly,” Rachel said. “If Zach and Kelly decide they’re your friends, they’ll do anything for you and they’ll always have your back.” She looked out the window toward the barn. “It’s the same with Fred.”
Nikki nodded as she looked out the window. “I can see that.”
Fred and Sammy emerged from the barn thirty minutes later. Dinner was soon served, and they conversed about the recent events while they ate. Fred mostly listened in silence, only speaking when Rachel would ask him a specific question.
When dinner was over, the two men cleaned up the kitchen while the women sat in the den on a large leather couch. Fred had added a couple of split logs to the fireplace in the den and it was soon basked in warmth. When he and Sammy had finished their kitchen chores and joined the women, Rachel had an announcement.
“I think I’d like for Nikki to go with you,” she said to Fred.
Fred arched an eyebrow. “Why?”
“Two reasons. One, she’s absolutely right. You are a wealth of knowledge, Fred McCoy, and you need to be teaching all of what you know to other people who are worthy of it.”
“What’s the other reason?” Sammy asked.
“Because my adorable husband needs someone to watch his back when he’s out there.”
“No, I don’t,” Fred said.
“Fred, if you take a fall and break a leg or something, you’ll die if you’re all alone. I can’t have you die before you see your child.”
“I’ve been doing this for a while now, I don’t make mistakes,” he protested.
“Fred, do you remember the nightmares?”
Fred’s jaw tightened, but he said nothing. Rachel looked over at the other thr
ee. “He shot an asshole not too long ago and was so messed up over the fact that he couldn’t put a quarter over his shot grouping, he had nightmares about it for the rest of the week.”
“Rachel, honey, please change the subject,” Fred said.
Rachel grinned and winked at him. She continued grinning, and after a second, they saw a reluctant smile form on Fred’s mouth.
Zombie Rules | Book 8 | Who The Hell Is That? Page 10