“I just wanted you to know we mean you no harm,” the man who had been talking said to Abby. “Name of Dale, at your service,” he said, doffing his tattered Ford hat to her, revealing a full head of dark hair and a young face that didn’t seem to match up with his gruff voice. Abby suspected the man was older than he looked.
“Abby,” she said, and then she was silent again. She was still tense, waiting for an ambush.
After allowing the silence to stretch several seconds, Dale said, “Well, alright then. You girls are free to go if you like, but you’re also welcome to spend the night. We don’t got much, but we can share what we have.”
“The hell we can!” another man interrupted. Abby and the others turned towards the new voice, coming from a two-story house to her right. A man’s shirtless upper body was leaning outside the open second-floor window, and his face bore a look that was one part shock, one part betrayal, and a dash of unmitigated wrath.
Dale sighed loudly, pinching the bridge of his nose between this thumb and forefinger. “We’re not doing this again, Bernie.”
“You’re fucking right, we’re not taking in no more strangers!” the man named Bernie shouted. “I bet they ran into that family and heard all ‘bout us and our goddamn generosity.”
“What family?” Abby asked. Dale looked at her and opened his mouth to answer her question, but Bernie spoke first.
“Go on, Dale! Tell her how you welcomed that family in with open arms and they made off with half our shit!” he yelled. His knuckles grew white as he gripped the window sill, and Abby and Emma exchanged concerned glances. “And that ain’t even the best part,” Bernie continued, “because you went and allowed that other feller in here, and he robbed us! And now you’re fixin’ to bring them girls in here? Fuck you!”
“And what do you want me to do? Turn them out into the cold night? This one’s got a broken arm and those packs look pretty nigh empty! What would Momma say?”
“Don’t!” Bernie yelled, “Don’t you dare bring Momma into this!”
“We’ll just go,” Abby said loudly. She’d had enough of this argument which clearly went back a lot farther than this evening. She started to back up, but Emma grabbed her around her bicep, and pulled her in close enough to whisper.
“Just for the night,” she said to Abby. “It’s getting real cold already, we can’t go looking for shelter this late.”
“I don’t like that guy,” Abby hissed through clenched teeth. “He’s dangerous.”
“He’s bad news, not dangerous,” Emma replied. “Sounds like Dale will handle him, and we can just stay away from him. No telling when we’ll next run into even halfway decent folks like these people.”
Abby chewed on this as a chill gust of wind blew through the crowd, tossing her ponytail about and stinging her reddening cheeks. It was indeed getting frigid, and if a suspicious Bernie was the worst of their worries for now, that wasn’t so bad, Abby thought. She glanced around and noticed that a few people were heading back inside, apparently content that the newcomers were no threat.
“We’ll take a room, please,” Abby said to Dale, who turned to face her. “And a little food in the morning, if you can spare any. We can make a fair trade, for what that’s worth,” she continued, but she wasn’t sure if they had anything worth trading. She had a fair amount of ammunition, but she had a sneaking suspicion that these folks were very well armed. A loud smack reverberated through the cold night air, and Abby looked up just in time to see Bernie skulking away from his now closed window.
“Sure, sure. A room and breakfast is no problem,” Dale said. He clapped Donny on the back, and turned around and said, “We can talk about tradin’ in the morning but for now let’s all get inside.”
“Just one thing,” Abby said, and Dale turned back around again. In a lower voice, Abby added, “We don’t want to be anywhere near your brother, Bernie.”
Dale nodded his head with a grim look on his face. “Can’t say I blame ya,” he whispered. He trudged off towards what was presumably his house and motioned for Abby and Emma to follow him. The two girls gave each other a glance, then followed.
Chapter Nine
Dale, along with Donny, escorted Abby and Emma across the dirt road towards his house. They climbed up two worn wooden steps onto an old-fashioned front porch that wrapped around one corner of the two-story structure.
“I do apologize for my brother, ladies,” he said as Donny opened up the front door and held it open for everyone.
Abby was the last one through, and as she passed she met Donny’s eyes. The corners of his mouth seemed to flex into the faintest traces of a grin, but Abby only scowled in return. The boy’s confidence wilted and his gaze fell to his shoes.
“Trust me, he’s a delight compared to others I’ve met,” Emma replied.
“I reckon that’s true, but it doesn’t excuse him,” Dale said as he thumped his rifle down on the floor, leaning it against the wall.
Abby stole a glance at the rifle’s lower receiver and saw that the safety selector had three options: safe, semi, and burst. That and the long barrel and fixed buttstock gave it away as an M16, just as she suspected.
Donny closed the door behind them, and now they all stood together in the sparsely furnished front room. The old wooden floors moaned underneath them as Donny shifted from one foot to the other, his face still flushed with embarrassment. It was bad enough Dad had yelled at him, he thought, but it was only made worse that it was in front of a pretty girl.
Dale cleared his throat as he removed his hat and set it on a hook affixed to the wall. “Guess I’ll show you ladies to your room,” he said, running a rough hand through his curly dark hair. “And you might as well go on up to bed now,” Dale said to Donny, poking him once in the shoulder. Donny practically ran upstairs, eager to escape the awkward situation.
Following Dale, Abby and Emma made their way down the narrow hallway, lit by a single candle atop a book shelf. Pictures in frames lined one wall, though the dim light did not allow Abby to get a clear glimpse of more than two of them. None of the people in the photos resembled Dale, which for some reason struck as her as odd. She had assumed that this had been his home before The Crisis, but apparently not. But why leave pictures of a different family on the wall, if that was the case? Abby shook her head, pushing these thoughts to the back of her mind. It was best not to dwell on why people did things, especially after all the world had gone through in the last few years.
“You guys got any more military weapons?” she asked, hoping to break the silence and disembark her previous train of thought.
“What makes you think we have any military weapons?” Dale asked without as much as a glance over his shoulder. They turned left into the kitchen, then continued on into what looked like a family room, with two couches and an enormous leather recliner.
“That’s an M16 out in the hallway,” Abby said. “Civilian rifles don’t have a burst mode, or at least not etched into the lower receiver like that.”
Dale allowed himself a small chuckle. “You got me,” he said. He turned to the right and led the girls to a partially closed door, pushing it open with his hand to reveal a bedroom. “This here’s the guest room,” Dale said as he swept his hand in a showy style, as if he was a realtor and Abby and Emma were interested buyers. He sniffed and then continued, “As you can see the window is boarded up tight, and the door locks on the inside. Y’all will be right safe in here. Only one bed though, sorry to say.”
He stepped over to the nightstand, which featured an old oil lamp, and pulled the drawer open, then fished around in the dark for a moment before laying hold on a box of matches. He struck one against the side of the box and it sparked into a tongue of flame. He allowed it to burn for a moment, then brought the match down to light the lamp.
“One bed is fine,” Abby replied, dropping her ruck and setting her rifle down next to it.
“You never answered her question,” Emma noted as she followed Abby’
s lead.
Dale blew the match out as the lamp began to glow. He put his hands on his hips and chewed on his lower lip as he pondered what he should say. “Yeah, we got some hardware,” he finally said in a hushed tone. “Bernie and I were both in the Army National Guard when The Crisis started. And… well… everything was such a mess, you see.”
“You deserted,” Abby said, filling in the blanks. All military reserves had been mobilized, or at least had been given orders when The Crisis began. But according to old newspapers Abby had found here and there, a lot of these men and women never showed up for duty. Many had understandably felt a greater loyalty to family than to country. Dale and Bernie must have been part of this crowd, but not before making off with some things from the armory.
Dale shrugged his shoulders, then thrust his hands deep into his pockets. “Yeah, yeah, I know. We broke our oaths. But family is… family. We had to be there for ‘em, you know? Hell, almost everyone in our unit did the same, and we all grabbed a few things that we figured big Army wouldn’t miss. I went for the chow, Bernie secured firepower.”
“I’d say you made the right call,” Emma said as she untied her boots and tossed these aside.
“Maybe, maybe not,” Dale replied. He left the room and bade them goodnight. “Prove me right, please,” he said. “Bernie wasn’t lying, and a few people sure did take advantage of my generosity. Now, I gotta keep on doing what my heart tells me is right because that’s how Momma raised us, but folks ‘round here are starting to grumble. Some of ‘em think we’d be better off with Bernie in charge. They’re wrong, though. They’re wrong. So you girls just behave and then be on your way tomorrow, and maybe that’ll restore their faith in me.”
He turned to leave, trudging back out towards the kitchen. Abby felt a pang of empathy as she watched him go. She hurried after Dale, stopping him in the hallway and said, “Hey. You’re right, you gotta keep doing what you know to be right.”
Dale grinned and rested his hand on Abby’s shoulder. “Thanks, kid,” he whispered. His eyes glistened as tears welled up, but none ran down his cheeks. “Lord knows it’s hard trying to survive out here without losing yourself. Bernie has come to hate me, and we’re constantly at each other’s throats since we lost our parents last year, and I just… I just miss my dad, and my mom.”
“Me too,” Abby replied. She felt tears pooling around her eyelids, but she blinked them away. She stayed standing there with Dale in the dim candlelight in silence, sharing an emotional, vulnerable moment with the man. She felt like she could see herself in his eyes, and could feel the pain of the burden he carried.
“Thanks for not being assholes,” she finally said as she turned to head back to the guest room.
Dale laughed softly and said, “Yeah, you too.” Then he thumped up the stairs.
Meanwhile, Abby made her way back to Emma. She closed the door and locked the handle, giving it a tug to test it. “You have a heart to heart out there?” Emma asked, already laying in the bed, her broken arm resting on her chest.
“Just thanked him for not murdering us,” Abby said as she grabbed a wooden chair from the corner of the room and used it to jam the door. Just in case.
“Ain’t that some shit, though? We live in a world where not murdering someone is considered praiseworthy,” Emma mused.
Abby only grunted in reply. She took her boots off and hopped into bed with Emma. There were two blankets, they were happy to find. Abby figured this house must have had a dozen blankets laying around if Dale and Donny left two perfectly good ones down here in the middle of winter.
“So, we sleep, we get some food, and we get outta here?” Emma whispered. She turned and softly blew out the light in the lamp, shrouding the room in darkness.
“That’s probably best,” Abby replied as she turned on her side to huddle up against Emma. Being indoors and having a bed and blankets was an incredible treat, but it was still cold, both outside and inside. She wrapped an arm around Emma, being careful not to hit her broken arm, and closed her eyes to sleep, her pistol still on her thigh. She never slept without it these days.
“How’d you get caught anyway?” Abby whispered.
“Hm?”
“I asked how you got caught. I mean, I know your arm is broken and all, but still.”
“Bah. I was trying to duck between those two houses, figured they wouldn’t be expecting me to run that way, but Dale stepped around the corner and basically clotheslined me.”
Abby laughed quietly and said, “He laid your ass out, huh?”
“Shut up, he got lucky,” Emma replied. “Anyway, Dale drew on me as soon as I hit the ground so I just laid there, staring up at him, waiting for him to pull the trigger. But he didn’t. He put the gun away and helped me up, told me he wasn’t gonna harm a woman, especially not one with a busted arm.”
“And that’s about when that boy shot at you. I panicked, told him the other person was just a kid, so Dale ran on over and yelled at the boy and tried to get your attention. And that’s why I decided we could trust him.”
“Well, looks like we made the right call staying the night,” Abby said.
“Psh, what do you mean ‘we’ made the right call? That was all me,” Emma replied.
“Yeah, yeah. Let’s just go to sleep.”
Abby had expected not to sleep well that night. Despite her precautions in securing their room, her paranoia was powerful and she couldn’t chase away images of awaking to find Bernie with his hands around her throat, Emma already dead on the floor.
Old fears also resurfaced in the dark little room: Henry, Edmund, Isaiah. Such evil men, responsible for countless deaths and unimaginable suffering. No fifteen year old girl had any business knowing even one such man, but Abby had encountered many.
But there was more to the world than evil. For all the wicked men against whom Abby had struggled, she had been blessed to walk beside many that were good and kind. She thought back to days and memories that felt like several lifetimes ago. She remembered Al and Amber, Diane and Ross, Mayor John Calvin of Little America. And… Zach.
Zach.
Abby blinked away another tear, and she carefully felt down her leg, touching the picture in her cargo pocket. It was too dark to look at it but she could see it in her mind as clear as water in a Caribbean lagoon: Zach and Abby sitting on a couch, with Zach flashing his typical half-smile while she herself beamed with happiness.
Abby was asleep before she even realized that she was tired, and she awoke in what seemed like minutes but the pinpricks of sunlight were peeking through and around the boarded up window. It was morning. She yawned and stretched, rolling onto her back then sitting up. Emma was still fast asleep with her eyes open. Pretty weird, Abby thought as she pulled her pistol free and checked the chamber.
The slight click of the slide being racked was enough to wake Emma. She stirred, then bolted up, leaning on her good arm. She looked around in confusion for a moment before remembering where they were. “Well, no one murdered us in our sleep, I see,” she said in a groggy, morning voice. She ran a hand through her short red hair and itched the back of her neck.
They disentangled themselves from the blankets and sheets of the bed and pulled their boots back on their feet, with Emma refusing help from Abby in lacing them up.
“So should we, like, just wait here until Dale or someone gets us?” Abby asked.
“I don’t know, dude. I feel like we should at least get out of the room,” said Emma. But their dilemma was solved when they heard a rustling sound. They looked towards the door and noticed a small slip of paper had been slid under it. Emma picked it up and squinted as she tried to decipher the messy handwriting.
“Looks like our hosts are ready to eat whenever we are, if we’d still like to,” she said to Abby, passing her the note. Abby read it anyway, despite Emma having just relayed the message to her.
“Might as well,” she said as she scooped up her rifle and her ruck. “But then we leave.”
They unlocked their door and stepped out into the family room which looked far more inviting and warm in the light of day. And speaking of warm, it actually felt a bit warmer on this morning than it had the previous few days. Such strange weather fluxes, Abby thought. Was weather here always this unpredictable or—
Abby’s concentration broke suddenly when Emma tapped her arm and motioned to the kitchen. Dale and Donny were sitting there at the table, and Bernie was with them.
Chapter Ten
Abby turned her body, her hand moving to her pistol, staring Bernie down. But he made no threatening gestures. In fact, he stood up with a sheepish look on his face.
“Morning, ladies,” he said, clearing his throat. “Listen, I wanted to apologize for my behavior last night. Turns out my fears were unfounded, since you haven’t run off with our stuff like the last folks did.”
“It’s still early,” Abby said, and Emma pinched her.
They chuckled at that, and Dale motioned for them to come and sit down. “Bernie came on over here and we had a real good talk about everything, the kind of talk we haven’t had in a long time,” he said. “Now we got baked beans, and a little bit of eggs for breakfast today, if you ladies still plan on joining us before you leave.”
Abby and Emma exchanged a glance, then dropped their stuff on the floor and took seats at the table, eagerly digging into the food on the plates in front of them.
“You got a chickens here?” Abby asked with a mouth full of baked beans.
“Oh yeah, we’ve kept up dozens of chickens,” Dale replied.
“Couple of cows too, for milk and cheese,” added Bernie.
“I haven’t heard any cows,” Emma noted, glancing out the window as if she expected to see a cow sauntering along the road.
His Name Was Zach (Book 2): Her Name Was Abby Page 9