by Lori Whitwam
I climbed the three steps to the Airstream, the trailer rocking slightly on its deflated tires as I did. I was surprised to find the inside clean and only a little musty. Jocelyn or Faith had tossed two bed rolls on each of the double mattresses and one on the couch. I unrolled one on the rear bed and lay down to rest my eyes. The next thing I knew, Melissa was shaking me awake for dinner.
Outside, I saw the rest of the team gathered in the vicinity of the temporary kitchen, sitting on the ground or leaning on vehicles. Jocelyn had whipped up some kind of hash, using the eggs our chickens had produced since our departure, potatoes, onions, some spices, and flavored with that salty dried beef that comes out of a jar. I put some on a piece of flatbread and settled on the ground beside a VW bus to eat. Rebecca positioned herself nearby, and we speculated for a while about our eventual destination, and how the unpredictable zombie migrations might disrupt our journey further. You know—usual dinnertime conversation.
A shadow passed between me and the setting sun, and I squinted up to see Ty standing over us. He carried two cans of Pepsi and handed one to Rebecca before sitting on the ground beside me and handing me the other. “Found it under the counter in the office,” he explained.
Rebecca grinned and popped the top of her can before taking a sip. “Awesome, thanks, Ty,” she said. “Go ahead, Ellen. Still fizzy and everything.”
I hesitated, and Ty nudged my elbow. “This one’s yours. I found four, and gave the other two to Melissa and Faith.” Damn. How did he know what I was thinking?
I opened the can and took a drink. Oh, the caramel-colored, carbonated goodness. “You didn’t keep one?”
Ty shook his head. “Nope, that shit’ll rot your teeth,” he said with a straight face.
I started to laugh, and pop literally bubbled out of my nose. I leaned forward and wiped at my face. “Oh, way to go, Tyler. This is a clean shirt!” Further inspection revealed I’d somehow managed not to get soda stains on myself.
“Sorry…sorry,” Ty said between laughs. “Hey, I was looking for you a while ago. Where’d you go?”
“Why? Did you miss me?” I quipped before I took a second to think.
He leaned toward me as if confiding a great secret. “As a matter of fact, I did, very much.”
On my other side, Rebecca snorted so loudly I feared she might have ruptured a sinus. “Shut it, you,” I directed at my friend. Still laughing, she rose and wandered off, sipping from her Pepsi between diminishing snorts.
I was trying to come up with a response that didn’t make me sound like a complete moron when the screen door to the office banged shut. We turned to see Marcus approaching us with a purposeful stride. Conversation around us died down as he hoisted himself onto the tailgate next to the camp stove.
“I been doing some thinking,” he began. “And after considering a few things, I’ve changed my mind about something.”
His announcement was met with silence, and I wondered if he’d decided to disclose the fallback location ahead of schedule.
“Well, are you going to tell us, Marcus, or do we have to guess?” Jocelyn asked as she reached around him to pour some water into one of the skillets and left it to soak.
“Hold your horses, woman, I’m trying to pick my words.” After a pause, he said, “In light of what took place today, and not knowing what still stands between us and the fallback, I don’t see any reason to delay the vote on Tyler Garrett’s membership on this team until tomorrow night. So we’re gonna vote right now and clear the air.”
Glances bounced around the camp from person to person, to Marcus, to Ty, and back again. I leaned toward Ty and whispered, “Did you know he was going to do this?”
He shook his head. “Nope, news to me.”
Marcus raised a hand to draw everyone’s attention back to him. “He fought beside us last night, and didn’t hesitate to come to the aid of another team member.” I looked at Rebecca and saw her nod. “Today, we were in a desperate situation. We could not have located the tie rod somewhere in the middle of that truck and gotten it installed in the amount of time it took him to fix the broken one and help Daisy put it back on.”
“That’s for sure,” Daisy said. “Most of you could’ve lent a hand, but the time we saved by having someone who knew exactly what needed to be done saved us critical minutes, and we didn’t have any to spare.”
“Those things, combined with the skills we discussed before we voted to allow him to stay with us on a provisional basis, led me to believe this team would best be served by getting this out of the way tonight.” He stood and turned his head to make eye contact with each person around him, before stopping at Ty. “Tyler, do you have any objection to this vote taking place now?”
Ty swallowed and replied, “No, sir. I’d like to get it done.”
“All right then, team, this is how we’re gonna do it. Unlike last time, Tyler will remain here for the vote. I debated taking myself back to the office, but I feel we need to be direct. We’re not doing another ring-around-the-rosey deal, either. I believe if we’re deciding a man’s fate, we should all have to look each other in the eye while we do it.”
Beside me, Ty stood and faced the group. “Before you vote, I’d like to say something.” Marcus gave his approval, and Ty squared his shoulders and began. “Not even a week ago, I was part of a group a lot like this. We all had something to contribute, and we just wanted to survive and find some sort of peace and maybe some happiness somehow, after all we’d lost.” He took a slow breath. “Then I lost all that, and it about broke me. Losing Tim made me consider just lyin’ down and giving up. But I had a little hope left, and kept going, and a couple days later you found me. I’m not gonna give some big campaign speech about why you should keep me on the team. Nobody ever liked politicians anyway.” A few chuckles sounded around the group. “All I’ll say is I’d like to stay. This team is strong, and I’d like to make it stronger. I know I can. I’m used to gettin’ things done. But if you vote me down, I’ll accept your decision. I’ll go without a fight, but I’d ask a couple of things.” He looked at Marcus, who nodded. “Don’t put me out here, get me to a place where I can find a working vehicle and some fuel, and leave me some supplies and ammunition. That’s all. If you can direct me to another settlement somewhere not too far away, I’d appreciate that too. Um…well…that’s it.” He sat back down beside me, and I clutched his arm and gave it a reassuring squeeze.
“All right, then,” Marcus said. “This is real simple, just a yes or no. You all know how I feel, and I hope you’ll take that into consideration, but you gotta make up your own mind. Any questions?” There weren’t. “So, show of hands, who votes to make Tyler Garrett a permanent member of fallback team three?”
Marcus’ own hand went up first, followed quickly by a few others, including my own and Cody Boatman’s. Others rose, some more slowly, and I held my breath. Finally, after what felt like ten minutes but was probably more like ten seconds, every hand was up, including Anton’s and Gil’s, though those last two came slowly and with obvious reluctance.
Marcus dropped his hand and slapped the tailgate beside him. “It’s unanimous, then. Welcome to the team, Garrett.”
A chorus of congratulations and welcomes sounded around us, and Ty stood again to receive some celebratory slaps on the back. He reached down for my hand and pulled me up to stand beside him. “I’m glad I get to stay, Ellen,” he said softly.
I looked at him and smiled, and my head spun as I realized how I’d have felt if he’d been sent on his way. “Yeah, me too,” was all I could think of to say. He seemed to find that acceptable, because he smiled back and squeezed my hand before releasing it to take a bottle someone passed to him.
The homemade liquor was passed around as the team began chatting, the tension gone from the atmosphere. Marcus had made a good call. Secret stashes of snack food and assorted treats were produced and shared, and Skip and the rest of the dogs made their rounds, begging a nibble or two from the more
soft-hearted among us.
As the last hints of pink faded from the western sky, we all began drifting off to find our beds, accompanied by a feeling of comradery and fervent hopes for a peaceful night.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I was awake before dawn. The night had remained free of zombies or other threats, but I still started awake at every sound. The previous night had been the first I’d spent outside our fortified community since my rescue, my patrols always being day trips, and it hadn’t passed without drama. After tossing for a while, and earning a sharp elbow in the ribs from Melissa, I figured I might as well get up.
Jocelyn and Faith were sound asleep on the other double bunk, and Rebecca was on the couch. She partially opened one eye as I pulled on my jeans and shoes and slipped my machete into its sheath, then closed it again and turned onto her back.
Outside, in the monochromatic light of approaching dawn, I noticed Phil on the roof of the office building, apparently on guard duty. He raised his binoculars in salute, then went back to scanning the forests and fields around the impound lot.
I settled myself on the hood of a car, folded my legs, and watched the sun rise, mulling over the previous evening’s events. I hoped the few people with reservations about Ty didn’t give him any trouble. You had to be able to trust everyone fighting beside you, and I made a mental note to be sure either Rebecca or I was with Ty during any battles, at least until I was sure. Anton had never let me down in a fight, but he still seemed reactive and clearly had issues with Ty, despite his vote. He’d claimed he hadn’t been talking about Ty when he mentioned not trusting someone, but who else could he have meant? Most of us had been together for a long time. Cody was fairly new to the group, but come on…Cody?
Gil also concerned me. He seemed shifty somehow and had joined us around the same time as Cody. I had yet to fight with him directly, but I remembered the skirmish before we left. His fighting partner had been seriously injured—by Gil—and it now occurred to me that Isaac’s wound had prevented him from staying on the team, and opened the door for Gil to be added in his place.
I heard the mehhh of a goat, and turned to find Wilhelm—miraculously still where he’d been tied—greeting Neil, who had arrived to milk Wilhelm’s adoring does. A few minutes later Jocelyn came out of the Airstream. She nodded a greeting and set about heating a kettle of water, placing some of our dwindling supply of tea bags and a small jar of honey on the tailgate beside her. I went to get my mug from the trailer and found the others stirring.
Back in my spot on the hood of the car, I sipped my tea, inhaling the familiar, comforting aroma, and watched the camp come alive. Before long, everyone was bustling about, loading animals and gear for the next leg of our journey. The dogs were given pans of leftover flatbread soaked in fresh goat milk, and after she picked up and stowed the pans, Melissa came to join me.
She cast a longing look toward the Airstream. “I wish we could take that with us.”
“That old thing? Why?” I drained the last of my tea, savoring the warm trickle of honey at the bottom. “Marcus said there are buildings where we’re going.”
Melissa sighed, then met my eyes. “I know, but…well, it kind of reminds me of camping with Aunt Jenny.”
I remembered her story of her aunt with the camper, begging Melissa and her family to abandon their familiar home and run with her to the Smokies. I stroked a hand gently across Melissa’s back. “Who knows, maybe she made it.”
“Maybe.” She didn’t sound as if she believed it, though.
Rebecca came to lean against the car beside us. “Morning,” she mumbled. She placed a cup of fresh milk on the hood and began working a wide-toothed comb through the wild mass of waist-length curls, freshly released from her customary braid. I knew Rebecca didn’t need to re-braid her hair so often, but did it because she found the ritual soothing. I touched my French braids, once again glad I’d had Melissa do them for me. I felt some wayward strands escaping, but it had held up as I’d hoped.
Ty exited the office and started across the lot, changing course when he spied us. As he neared us, I noticed his short beard had received a trim this morning, taking it barely beyond stubble status. “Morning, Ellen, Melissa…Rebecca.” A glint appeared in his eyes. “Becky…Becca? Becks?”
Rebecca rewarded his jocularity with a withering glare. “Oh dear lord, he’s a morning person.”
Ty chuckled but wisely refrained from further comment.
“Always Rebecca,” Melissa advised him. “If you want to avoid a sword through your liver.” I nodded in agreement.
Rebecca—never Becky—reached over her head and started the process of re-braiding her hair. Melissa scooted off the car to go check on the cats, telling me to grab Skip next time I saw him.
“Sleep okay?” Ty asked.
“Not especially.”
He made a soft, sympathetic sound. “Yeah, it’ll be good to get wherever we’re going. I assume it’ll be more secure. Hard to rest easy on the road these days.”
We continued to chat, not about anything in particular, for a while after Rebecca finished her subduing her hair and left. I tried not to think about the vertigo I’d felt the night before when I realized how upset I’d have been if he hadn’t received the votes to make him a permanent team member, and I definitely avoided thoughts of what it might mean now that he was staying.
Marcus and John came out of the office carrying the radio equipment, followed by Melissa and Gil lugging the cats in their big carrier. Marcus started bellowing out orders, and within a half hour we were on the road, leaving the temporary sanctuary of the impound lot behind.
I thought I might sleep, considering my restless night, but I couldn’t. There were the team-related puzzles and the whole Ty situation on my mind, but what really kept me awake were the zombies. There weren’t any herds, never more than five or six at a time, but there were more than we’d seen the last couple of days. I couldn’t figure out why none of these roaming bands of dead had happened upon our camp last night, but decided I should just be grateful for the fact and leave it at that.
Their movements today, however, did bother me. I turned in my seat and pulled Ty’s attention from the tattered paperback he was reading. A Confederacy of Dunces. One of my favorites. I’d have to see if he’d let me borrow it…I shook myself out of my book nerd moment and refocused.
“Ty, watch the zombies for a minute.”
He gave me a quizzical look, but did as I asked. At first he seemed distracted, doing it only because I’d asked, but after about five minutes his posture straightened, and he began scanning both sides of the road, watching for movement in the trees or fields as we passed. Finally, his jaw tight, he turned to me.
“I know what I’m seeing, but what does it mean?”
I bit the inside of my lip, thought, then said, “I’m not sure, but it’s strange. And strange isn’t usually good. Being able to anticipate to some extent is a big part of avoiding trouble.”
He rubbed a hand along the back of his neck in thought. “It’s too random, if that makes any sense.”
I nodded. “It does.”
“The ones I’ve usually seen tend to move along the road. Like they started following somebody, and kept going, like they do.”
“Right,” I agreed. “I used to imagine some of them walking back and forth on the same road. Follow somebody south, keep walking until somebody passes them going north. Turn around and follow them, repeat until they eventually catch up with somebody or something draws them in a different direction.”
Cody picked up on our conversation and jumped in. “It’s more than that, even.” He gestured at a small cluster of zombies in a field we were passing. “Look at those ones. They’re not going anywhere. They’re just milling around. And so far today I’ve noticed them going both directions on the road, walking off the road into the trees—until they saw us—but they’re all different.”
I always noticed on any particular day, zombies I encountered
all seemed to be going more or less the same way until we disrupted them, moving toward whatever was the greatest source of stimulation indicating potentially edible humans. “It’s like they don’t know where to go,” I concluded.
“If we’re in the area I think we are, based on the road signs, there’s not much here. No towns anywhere nearby. Maybe there’s nothing to attract them, so they don’t have any direction,” Ty suggested.
Cody said, “That, or there’s too much low-level stimulus. Nothing strong enough to really pull them any one direction, but lots of little hits scattered around.”
I didn’t like the sound of that at all.
I continued to watch the activity until we made a quick stop just after midday. Unfortunately, we had to cut our break short when three separate clusters of dead appeared—from three different directions—within minutes of each other. We took out the few that managed to come between us and our vehicles, hastily reloaded, and got back on the road.
The trip continued for several more hours, with the occupants of our van alternately napping, talking about nothing in particular, or staring out the windows. We passed through a couple of miniscule abandoned towns and other signs of former civilization, but as always, our route was focused on staying as far away from known habitations, past or present, as possible.
Patrick was driving that day, with Melissa and Faith in the seats right behind him, and at long last his radio crackled to life. After he acknowledged the message, he called over his shoulder, “Marcus says our overnight is about thirty or forty minutes ahead.”
That was the best news I’d heard all day, but I still felt anxious.
People started shifting around, gathering items they’d spread out during the day for entertainment or comfort, and stretching their legs in preparation for getting out of the van.
Eventually the brake lights flared on Marcus’ SUV, and he turned onto a long lane, the rest of us following. I saw a battered sign reading ‘Stratmore Estate.’