Getting out of bed and walking into the living room, Rachel saw a man covered in blood, crying his heart out.
“What happened?” Rachel asked.
“THE DEAD- I HEARD THEM SPEAK! THEY TALK- I- I- I-” The man began sobbing uncontrollably.
Rachel looked at Janey and back at the man. “Okay, well- Uh- Calm down?” She shrugged and looked back to Janey.
Janey walked over to the man and crouched down, rubbing his arm. “It’s okay, you’re safe. Tell us what happened.”
“M- M- me and Collin, we were out in the city-” He sniffled. “We got separated taking out a small group of infected and that’s when I heard one of them talk!”
“What did they say?”
“One said ‘he went that way’. He- he was talking about Coll!”
Janey looked at Rachel as she got up. “Well then... Rachel and I’ll go give it a look. Why don’t you head home, get some rest...”
The man rubbed his eyes as he stood up, trembling. “It- it was- It...” He shook his head. “It was horrifying. Hearing them speak.”
“Head home. We’ll go check it out.”
After the man left, Rachel and Janey began heading toward the city.
“So what was that about?” Rachel asked.
Janey shook her head. “Who knows. More than likely he was just hearing things, but John would check it out anyway, for reassurance, you know? Even if he thought it was a waste of time.”
“Well right now we have more important things to worry about, don’t you think?”
“The Acquainted?” She shook her head. “I don’t know. But right now, when you’re not working, enjoy the peace. Give it time, soon you’ll be used to it and you’ll be a natural leader, just like John is. And heck, if you mind to stop shavin’ you could even be rockin’ a killer Miller beard too!”
Rachel let out a little laugh and pulled out her revolver.
• • •
John sat in his cell, staring as Morgan walked down the hall with Davey, Patrick, and Gordon.
“Hey, Johnny! Some of your friends wanted to say hi before our date!”
John got up and hobbled over. “Yes, Morgan?” he asked before coughing.
Morgan patted Patrick’s back. “Sure was fun forcing Daddy down on Rachel, wasn’t it?”
Patrick laughed. “Cute kid you got, John. She kinda reminded me of Ellie. Too bad she’s dead, we could’ve had some fun with her too,” he said, spitting in John’s face.
Morgan looked to Gordon. “Do you have anything you wanna tell him before we head out?”
Staring at him for a moment, Gordon shook his head. “Not now.”
Morgan raised his brows. “Really?”
“Whatever I say wouldn’t fuck ‘em up any more than he is now. Seein’ ‘em locked up, beaten...” He smirked. “I like this. He’s gettin' what he deserves.”
Morgan let out a laugh and looked at John. “Pat, Gord, get the fuck out of here.”
As the men left, Morgan unlocked the cell and pointed at John. “Davey, be a deer and cuff him for me.”
Walking into the cell, Davey put John’s arms behind his back, slapped one cuff on his wrist, and stared at his stump. “Uh, Boss?”
Morgan laughed. “Oh yeah, that’s right. I cut that shit the fuck off, didn’t I? How foolish of me.” Reaching in his jacket, he pulled out a roll of duct tape. “This oughta do it!”
John was butt naked. Covered in dried blood and shit. His hair and beard were a mess, and his arms were taped behind his back.
They walked all around the Base, and went outside.
John squinted his eyes, turning his head from the sun.
Morgan patted him on the back and walked him to the fence, covered in infected on chains, some on spikes surrounding it. “One day, that’s gonna be you,” he said, pointing at an infected snapping its teeth at them. “Fuck, one day it’s gonna be Rachel. Norman. Bill. Hell, we’ll dig up Mommy-No-Baby and stick her on there too!”
John looked at him and glared.
“What? You don’t enjoy your outside time? Is the air a little too cold on the balls? The sun too hot for you? Well I’m fucking sorry, I thought I was being nice as fuck taking you outside.”
John nodded. “...Thank you.”
Slowly, a grin spread across Morgan’s face.
“What?”
“Oh, nothing. I just imagined the noises you’d make if I threw you into the arms of one of those rotting shit sacks right now.”
• • •
The Third Week
Rachel pushed Billie’s chair as the two went for a stroll around Argentina.
Rachel rubbed Billie’s shoulder. “So the pris-”
“Rachel?” a man yelled from across the street.
She stopped and turned her head. “Yeah?”
“The Acquainted, they aren’t coming back anymore, are they? You shouldn’t give people false-”
“Morgan’s dead,” she said as she began pushing the chair. “Fuck,” she mumbled.
Billie turned her head and looked at her. “As you were.”
“So the prison, your old group, I think it might be a good ide-”
“Hey,” a woman yelled, hurrying over to her. “My husband went on a run this morning and he isn’t back yet!”
She clenched her teeth and slowly looked at the woman. “Gavin? Give him time, the guy’s probably fine.”
“PROBABLY?”
“Jesus, YES, THAT’S WHAT I SAID,” she yelled as she began rolling Billie up the road.
“...Like I was saying, I think it’s a smart idea to reach out to-”
“Rachel?” a man hollered.
“Can you people fuck off for one GOD DAMN SECOND?” she screamed, leaving Billie and storming away.
Later.
Climbing up, Janey joined Rachel atop a bus, parked outside the wall of Argentina. “Hey.”
Rachel glanced back. “Hey.”
Janey sat down beside her and put her arm around her. “I kept thinkin’ about it, and yeah. When John gets back I think I will try to get back together with him.”
She sniffled. “Good for you.”
“Rachel, I know this is hard for you. But you’re doing a good job.”
“At what?” She looked at her with teary eyes. “What specifically am I doing good at?”
“...Not givin’ up. Lookin’ after the place... Everybody’s healthy, eatin’, a lot are sleepin’ without worry...”
She looked at the ground and leaned against Janey. “I hate this so much.”
Janey rubbed her back and nodded. “Yeah. So did I.”
Rachel looked at her and raised a brow.
• • •
John and Norman sat against the wall, against the bars separating their cells.
Norman had a busted lip, and a small amount of blood on his chest. John however had two blackeyes. Lines of blood ran from his nose and over his swollen lips. His body covered in bruises and dried blood.
John turned to Norman and held his arm up between the bars.
Norman grabbed his hand.
“We’re gonna beat this,” John told him.
Norman looked John up and down. “One of us might.”
Chapter 17:
What a Leader Has to Do
One month since the attack at the Ohio Base.
Billie kissed her on the cheek. “Good morning,” she said as Rachel opened her eyes.
Rachel yawned, “Good morning.”
“Getting up?”
“God, I don’t know. It’s just so much work. I wanna go to Cascadia to see if I can talk some sense into them, I wanna go to your old group...”
“You’re not doing it alone,” Billie said, rubbing Rachel’s arm. “Come on, I’ll go make us some breakfast.”
“I think today’s a stay in bed kinda day.”
“You’re getting up, Boss Girl.”
She sighed. “Billie?”
Climbing off the bed, Billie plopped into her wheel ch
air. “Come on. We’ll get you cleaned up, you’ll eat, and we’ll go to Cascadia. Let’s be productive today!”
“I gotta clean up to go to Cascadia? These days I think we’ve gotten used to the smell.”
“You’re the leader now. When it was-… He always kept his hair combed, his clothes were nice! The least you can do is wash your hair,” she said with a laugh.
Rachel yawned and pulled herself out of bed. “Fuck,” she mumbled.
Going to the bathroom, Rachel laughed, looking at the huge hole in the door left by Morgan when he kicked it in. I need to get this fixed, she thought as she slid off her pants. “Need me to clean you up while I’m in here?” Rachel asked, unbuttoning her blue khaki shirt.
“No.”
“Ya know, I don’t know where we’d even look, but I’m pretty sure they make wheel chairs specially made for showers. Like so they don’t rust or something.” Rachel took off her top, folded it, and sat it on the sink.
“God that’s gross,” Billie said, staring at the huge scab on Rachel’s back.
“You wanna rip it off? ‘Cause I’m not. Fuck that shit, it’d hurt too much. I’m gonna let it fall off.”
Sliding off her boxers, Rachel jumped in the shower.
“Didn’t you used to run an even bigger place before this? New Colombia, right?”
“Me?” she asked with a laugh. “No. I had some power, but Carver did most of the work. I was just a kid. I’ve never had to do it on my own before- or have to do most of it. I’m not saying you and Janey don’t help, but I mean, like? It’s like me and Carver, ya know? I did what I could but Carver dealt with almost everything.”
After showering, Rachel dried off and was getting dressed.
“Shit,” Billie said, holding back a laugh as Rachel put on a pair of black jeans.
“What?”
“You need to shave your legs. Wearing John’s shirts is cute, but growing your hair like his isn’t,” she said with a laugh.
“Stuff like that isn’t really top priority right now,” she said, sliding on one of John’s beige khaki shirts. God I hate being in charge.
As Rachel dried her hair with a towel, she heard a knocking at the door. “Hello?” a man’s voice called out.
She rolled her eyes. “I’m shitting! Come back later!”
Outside.
“I guess they must be busy,” the man said, looking back to Jamie.
Her hair was tied back in a ponytail. She wore a light blue dress and a warm smile. “Oh no, they’re probably just sinning.”
The man nodded. “Right,” he said with a chuckle.
“What was your name again, sir?”
“Dutch, but my friends call me Peter,” he said as he shook her hand. “The little girl’s Jessabelle, the boy’s Jeremy, and this,” he said, putting his arm around his wife. “Is my lovely wife, Jeannine.”
“It is a pleasure to meet you all!”
“Likewise.”
Jessabelle pulled on her father’s hand. “Daddy, what’s the girl doing?”
“Yes, sister, what did you mean by that? A little morning drinking?”
“Homosexual intercourse.”
Dutch glanced at his kids. “Oh?”
“Our new leaders are homosexuals.”
“Is that it?”
“Excuse me?”
“I mean no offense, sister, but in the new world, do you really think God cares about this kind of thing? Any kind of love these days is a beautiful thing, wouldn't you think?”
“Well, new world or not, it’s still a sin against our Lord.”
Dutch bit his lip and glanced at his wife. “...Thank you for the tour, sister, but I think we’ve got it from here.”
“Very well. Have a safe visit.”
“Thank you,” he said as she waked away.
“Some people,” Jeannine mumbled.
“For God’s sake, people are killing each other and drinking their blood and people like her honestly have a problem with something like that? Some people need to get their priorities straight. I’d worry about the sun going out before I worried myself with what the people protecting me were doing in their own home.”
Jessabelle tapped her father’s arm. “When are we seeing uncle Josh?”
“Mister Nobel lives in Cascadia, Jezzie, we probably won’t be seeing him until sometime tomorrow.”
A few minutes later, Rachel opened the door. “What do you-” Her eyes widened. “Holy shit, Dutch!”
He tilted his head and stared at her for a moment. “Do we know each other?”
“I don’t know if you remember me, my name’s Rachel. Me and my dad visited the Tribual in the early days. Remember a guy talking about going to Florida, we had a truck with the windshield busted out?”
After a minute, a smile spread across his face. “Yes I do, wow. Who would’ve guessed you were gonna grow up to become a leader of men?”
“It’s nice to see you again,” she said, shaking his hand. “So is there something I can do for you?”
“As you know, I run the Tribual, and you may have heard that for some time, the Tribual just, disappeared! We were captured and enslaved by the Acquainted. We’ve escaped now and we’re trying to get back on our feet. Right now we’re reaching out to other communities to ask them to be our ally in the war with the Acquainted.”
Rachel nodded. “It’s something to think about. I’m gonna go back inside, finish cleaning up, have something to eat... Then I’ll get back to you.”
“Alright, that sounds great.”
“Okay, well just make yourselves comfortable, swing by later today and we’ll talk.”
He smiled and nodded. “Perfect.”
Later that morning, Rachel and Billie sat at the table having a bite to eat. “So tell me about Rodney’s group. Like before I meet them, what should I know?”
“Okay, well the group isn’t technically led by Rodney, he’s sorta just the face, the real leaders are this really pretty girl, Austin, and this badass, Daryl!” She smiled and swallowed her food. “Daryl’s one of the coolest people you’ll ever meet. He’s real crazy though,” she said with a laugh.
Rachel took a sip of coffee. “And the prison?”
“Oh my god, it’s great! I didn’t know if I was gonna go with you if you went, just because- you know, people asking about dad... Anyway, but it’s awesome. I can’t wait to show you around!”
“How many people do they have?”
“Before we left... Maybe seven? I think? There used to be thirteen of us. Oh, and we’ll need to be really careful at first because they’ll probably be a bit jumpy. For a long time we were dealing with this group led by these three crazy people. They controlled the dead people.”
Rachel raised a brow and stared at Billie. “How does that work?”
“They’d disguise themselves. Some of them wore human skin like in that Texas Chainsaw movie, and others just wore organs and stuff like they were accessories. It was fucked up.”
“What happened to the group?”
“They’re still at the prison. Or they were before we left.”
“No, the crazy people?”
“Oh, the ferals, they just left.”
Rachel stared at her plate of spaghetti, thinking about guts and blood. “Yummy.”
• • •
Later that day, the Ohio base.
He wore lose black jeans, a white t-shirt, and was now sporting a short well-trimmed beard. He spit in his hands, slicking his hair back he then rubbed them together. “Wakey, wakey, sunshine!”
John laid in the corner of his cell. He was completely naked and covered in bruises and dried blood.
Morgan sat a boombox outside the cell and unlocked the door. “Play time,” he said, walking in and over to John.
He looked up from the cold damp floor. “Took you long enough, thought you forgot about me today.”
“Funny man. How could I ever forget about you?” Morgan pulled earplugs from his pocket and put them in.
“My boys found this thing in an old record shop- shit oughta be perfect for you, I seen the type of shit you’re into.” Morgan put a cassette tape into the boombox. “Fuck this is gonna be fun,” he said as I Wanna Rock You by Girogio Moroder began playing at full volume.
John covered his ears and curled up in the fetal position. “Turn that down!”
“FUCK NO!” Morgan laughed, slipping on his leather gloves. “I am gonna rock your fuckin’ world!” Morgan pulled John up and threw him shoulder first into the hard cement wall.
“Harder,” John yelled.
“Alright, tough ass!” Morgan lifted him back up and threw him against the wall.
“Is that all you got?”
Swinging John up in the air, he dropped him back first onto his knee.
“FUCK!” Morgan shoved John to the floor and went to the boombox. “If I gotta listen to this shit too, let’s listen to something that’s not so ear fuckey.” Morgan pulled a cassette tape from his pocket and smiled. “Fuck, this is a good one.” Switching the tapes, the song Back to the Wall by Divinyls started to play.
“COME ON, MORGAN,” John screamed as Norman watched from his cell.
Morgan booted John in the face, busting his lip open. “One of these days I’m gonna end up taking the whole head off!” he said with a laugh.
Morgan pulled John up and threw him face first into the bars of the cell. “Look at that Normy,” he said, pressing John’s face between the bars. “The offer always stands for Hellfire!”
Norman glared at him. “Go to hell.”
Morgan grinned and threw John down.
"Your wife,” John said as he got up.
Morgan put his thumbs in his belt and stared at him. “What about her?”
“You kill her? Nah, you didn’t kill her- You couldn’t save her! That’s it, isn’t it? Died a slow and painful death, just like your son.”
Morgan grabbed John by the throat and slammed him against the wall.
“You couldn’t protect them, could you?”
Morgan headbutted John in the mouth and threw him to the floor. “You just made this shit a hundred times harder on Rachel- that's all this is doing right now.” Morgan clenched his fists and tried to stay calm.
When Was? (Book 2): Who Are You Acquainted With? Page 15