by Schow, Ryan
“Now that you got the taste, keep it at bay,” Clay warned, not sure if one murder might precipitate another.
“There’s nothing to keep at bay,” Logan said, almost like he was offended. “This isn’t a treat for me, some long held need materializing. This is payback for half the town being killed, the school being blown up, Miranda…”
“What are you doing now?” Clay said.
“Leaving.”
“And Boone?”
“He’s back home, I guess.”
“Did you see Stephani while you were over there?” Clay asked.
The fact that he asked this had him thinking how wrong he’d been about the woman. He should have gone out with her three months ago.
“I knew you were jealous,” Logan said, smiling for the first time.
“I’m not jealous,” he stammered. “It’s just…”
He felt so alone for awhile there, and maybe he thought she could fill that void. But alas, she’d gone to his brother to comfort him and help him out where he needed it. Since then, she’d become a permanent fixture in his life. Not that Boone knew it, or was even aware of it. The man lived every day in a fog of grief so thick, most days he wasn’t even reachable.
“If she was there when he got back,” Logan said, “chances were pretty good she headed back up the hill. I’m going there now.”
“How’s Harper?” Clay asked.
Whatever jealousy he felt in not having someone during all this while so many other people did, failed to show. If he learned anything from Logan, Harper and Skylar, it was how to conceal your emotions.
“She’s good. She’ll be happy to hear about Bronx.” He got up, shook Clay’s hand and said, “Orbey’s got everyone up at the house for ‘composting 101’ training. Plus they’ll be working the garden. I think Stephani will be up with the hives today. At least, that’s what I remember her saying. You should stop by.”
“She’s my brother’s…whatever now.”
“They’re not sleeping together.”
“I know,” Clay said. “But I see the way she looks at him.”
“She’s smitten, for sure,” Logan said. “But a girl like that needs something in return. Which means the shelf life on her fantasies, when unrequited, are going to be shorter than you think.”
“It’s been three months,” Clay stammered.
“Exactly,” he said, starting for the front door. “If I don’t see you up there, at the house, I’ll be on the mountainside. We’re breaking ground on a new well near the second location.”
He thought about this for a moment. Then: “If we needed to bug out today, could we make do with what you have so far?”
He was never truly excited about living in the forest, or scratching around in the dirt like a bunch of woodland creatures, but preparing for the worst was a necessary precaution, all things considered. It was different when he and Boone were kids and they’d set out on a hunting expedition with their father. That was fun, exciting. But now, not so much.
“We could make do, but it wouldn’t be comfortable, and you certainly couldn’t get the entire town up there. But if we get what we’re hoping for out of this well, then we can start on phase two. After that, I’m hoping we can all get back to normal.”
“What the hell does normal even mean these days?” Clay snorted out.
“Not dead?” Logan suggested.
He watched Logan leave, sipping his coffee in the cool morning air, thinking that he’d need to pay his brother a visit today.
He prayed this morning’s retaliation shook something loose.
He rapped at Boone’s front door, waited for a few minutes, then knocked again. He was about to head over to the cemetery, thinking that was the only other place he’d find the man, when the lock disengaged and the door opened. Boone was there, half his hair and beard smashed down, his eyes heavy with sleep. He looked like a kid who’d just fallen into a deep sleep and was roused prematurely, the look on his face purely unpleasant.
“You here about Bronx?” he asked.
“Yeah, can I come in?”
“You don’t need to ask,” Boone said, blocking the doorway, but not on purpose.
“Well then get out of the way,” Clay said pushing past him and heading inside. “Is Stephani here?”
“She went home,” he said.
He strolled inside the living room, saw Boone’s blanket on the couch, the cushions smooshed in from his big body spending too much time there. At Rowdy’s pack ‘n play, Clay stood over the child. He was fast asleep, his little fist stuffed in his mouth.
“He’s getting big,” Clay said. “Did you teach him how to say ‘Uncle Clay’ yet?”
“After he learns how to say ‘Daddy,’” Boone said, “I’ll teach him how to say “Uncle Clay.’”
“Promise?” he asked with a grin.
“Scout’s honor,” Boone said without much emotion.
Every time Clay saw the child, he thought about the bullet holes in the stroller, the broken handle, how he and Boone thought Rowdy had died. He almost had. Fractions of an inch was all that saved his life. But only when those fragile things in Boone’s mind had split was Dr. Quinn able to tell Boone his son was alive.
Rowdy lived, but Miranda died.
Entire parts of Boone had died that day, too.
The man had yet to fully come around, and this worried Clay daily. It worried a lot of people. But a father’s job is seldom an easy one, and a widower’s job is twice as hard without the added stress of grief. In the end, Clay chose to believe Boone would recover. Then again, only time could prove the validity of his convictions. He prayed he was right.
“How’s he doing?” Clay asked.
“Sleeping a lot,” Boone replied. “And he’s doing well with Stephani, although with as much as that woman’s over here, the kid’s gonna grow up thinking she’s his mom.”
“How do you like having her over?” Clay asked.
“She’s fine. Thanks for that, by the way. Without her, I’m not sure I would have made it this far.”
“I didn’t send her over,” Clay said. “Apparently she did that on her own.”
“Why would she do that?” Boone asked.
Clay just stared at him. “Are you dense, brother?” he asked.
Then it hit him, almost like he got it.
“She wants to be Rowdy’s mother,” he said.
“No, you spectacular dumbass,” Clay said, plopping down on the couch. “She wants to be with you, and with him.”
This seemed to make him nervous. Almost like the prospect of a romantic interlude scared the hell out of him. Except he wasn’t thinking about romance. He saw in his brother’s face that Stephani might be working with an ulterior motive and it bothered him.
“So you didn’t send her?” he asked again, picking up Rowdy. The child stirred but didn’t wake up. Clay shook his head. “If she thinks there’s something here…I mean, if she thinks I’m just going to cast aside the memory of Miranda and move on to her...”
“Relax, man,” Clay said, holding up his hands. “Having a pretty woman like you and want to take care of you in your time of need is not the end of the world.”
“Tell her not to come back,” he said.
“Shut up, moron,” Clay snapped. He was off the couch in a snap, standing right in front of Boone with balled fists. “That’s what Dad would say to you right now. He’d tell you to take your precious little emotions and throw some dirt on the hurt.”
Boone covered Rowdy’s exposed ear, turned him away from Clay. “You’re acting crazy,” Boone said.
“You guys killed Bronx and didn’t even tell me. You sent Logan over to tell me.”
“I didn’t send him,” he said.
Clay shook his head, his emotions rising pretty fast. Tempering his erratic outburst, he said, “I’m going up to the Madigan’s house. Don’t you dare stop Stephani from coming over here. Not because of you, but because of him. Rowdy. Unless you can get your head str
aight and start being an emotionally present father, you need someone who can nurture and love this kid.”
Boone nodded his head, then said, “Alright, fine. I get it.”
Grinding his molars, pissed off that Stephani was doing all this for him, and his brother was not only too absent to see what was going on, but when he figured it out, he was ready to just throw it away, irritated him. Three months of this, and he was still so damn dense.
“Get it together, man,” Clay said. “You’re a father now.”
“I know.”
He turned and left, driving the Blazer up to the Madigan’s household. He was supposed to go up there to learn gardening like everyone else, but truthfully, he wanted to see Stephani. He wasn’t obsessed with her, but he was going to maybe take one more run at her before giving up. It would be easy if she’d wasn’t so invested in the idea of being Boone’s wife and Rowdy’s mother, if that was in fact the case, but people were strange and nothing was easy. Nothing was ever easy.
When he got to the Madigan’s cul-de-sac, he looked at the big pile of bones, most of the ash now washed away by the rains. The Chicom vehicles were still there, however, the evidence of a battle waged and won all too apparent.
He’d always walked by the pile, creeped out by it. Now he walked right to it, his energy restless. Glancing up the hill, he knew there were people there, lots of men and women interested in long term survivability through gardening. Stuffing his hands in his pockets, he felt extremely grateful for Orbey and Connor, for their willingness to teach the town how to garden, how to take care of their chickens and how to shoot.
Looking down, he toed a burned Chicom skull, then rolled it over and stomped on it once, twice, three times before kicking the broken pieces aside.
That was once a man, he told himself. He was someone’s child, a boy with hopes and dreams, an innocent swallowed into the Chicom nightmare. Whoever he was, he’d been turned from a potentially decent person into a devoted soldier, perhaps even a murderous fiend.
A big part of him felt bad for the indoctrination of the Chinese people. They were good people. But the Chicom government was sick and diabolical, so bad they would subject most of their citizens to the worst standards of living as a matter of principle. A dark feeling set in as he dwelled a bit too long over the subject. Looking at the pile of bones, he realized the other part of him now hated those once good people who turned bad, either by force or their own volition.
As he trudged up the hill, he thought that the worst circumstances made animals of them all. At that point though, he wasn’t sure if it was wise to feed the animal inside of him—to let the beast run loose—or if he needed to starve the beast and try to get back in touch with his humanity.
He didn’t want to leave that decision to Stephani, especially since she’d never even know all the things he was thinking, but that felt like the case. A good woman always found a way to bring out the best in men.
When he reached the top of the hill, he saw the house, but it looked vacant. He headed up to the barn, passing the hives first. He didn’t see Stephani. He was sure she’d be there, but she wasn’t. As he got to the top of the hill, near the new gardens that were within throwing distance of the barn, a large group of people were gathered around Orbey.
They saw him and a few of the women waved, or nodded in acknowledgement. He smiled, but didn’t see Stephani. One of the guys nodded at him; he nodded back. He moved into the crowd and listened as Orbey talked to them not only about the benefits of composting, but the need for it as it pertained to soil renewal.
He understood the basics of gardening, which was to say he knew the first years were usually tough, that they required patience, understanding and calibrating. But they didn’t have two or three seasons to get through the learning curve. They had one season at best before people started to starve and die out.
If there was something he understood, it was composting. His father made him and Boone do that as children.
He broke off from the group and headed inside the barn. Skylar and Ryker’s door was closed. Harper was over by the gun safe packing ammo into mags, almost like this was part of her daily responsibilities.
“How much more ammo do you guys have?” Clay asked.
“Morning,” she said.
“Oh yeah, hi,” Clay said. “Sorry, I’m a bit distracted.”
“Why?”
“We found the traitor,” Clay said. “Bronx McLaren.”
She frowned, stopped what she was doing and looked up at him, concerned. “Has he been dealt with yet?”
“Yes.”
“Who?” she asked.
“Logan and Boone,” he said. She crossed her arms and leveled him with those eyes. That was the look that demanded he tell her everything. “Logan, Boone, Noah and Quan tortured him, and then they killed him.”
“Who killed him?” she asked.
He drew a deep breath, considered not telling her the truth. But that look…God, how the hell could he ignore that look?
Frowning, he finally said, “Logan.”
“Details,” she said.
“He cut off three of his fingers to get the truth out of him, then he shot him in the head.”
A relaxed smile slid onto her face. “Good for him.”
“Good for him?” he asked.
“He’s come a long way from where he started,” she said, almost like she was pleased that he’d killed the man. “Then again, we all have.”
Over the last three months, whatever Harper had in her that was nice, kind or caring was now gone. This was a woman who’d let the leash off her beast. Did she even have any humanity left in her? Did Logan? Did any of them?
He knew the answer to that was yes, but barely.
Orbey continued to remain the sunlight in everyone’s world. As did Stephani. These were women who could kill, but they chose to teach, to care for others, to nurture those willing to stand on the front lines and fight for those who couldn’t fight for themselves.
“Where’s Stephani?” he asked again.
“Hives, I think.” He shook his head, told her she wasn’t there. “Did you check the chicken coop?”
“Not yet,” he said.
“If she’s not there, check the firing range,” Harper said. “She’s gotten pretty good with the Chicom rifles we confiscated.”
They all had.
Looking at Harper, he couldn’t see who she truly was. He could only see who she had become. When he first met Skylar, he saw a battle tested nightmare of a woman, a woman who looked like she’d been run over by the Chicom combine. Harper was so sweet back then. Now, he wondered if Skylar could hold a candle to Harper.
“Thanks,” he said.
“Where’s Logan now?” she asked, going back to packing rounds.
“I don’t know. I think they’re at the second site, drilling for a well.” She nodded. “Are you okay?”
“Groovy,” she said, her eyes no longer on him.
In that moment, he felt dismissed. It was crazy that he felt that way around her. Then again, it could be that she and Logan were feeding off each other. But which one of them would outdo the other? Who was the bigger nightmare? The one with the biggest beast, he thought. Taking one last look at Harper, he was starting to think her beast was biggest.
When he left, it was to no fanfare.
He stepped out into the warm sun, the smell of vegetation, fresh air and freedom filling his lungs. He found Stephani at the coop, checking the chickens and collecting eggs.
“Hey,” he said.
She turned and said, “Hey back.”
“I need to talk to you about something, but I’m not sure how to bring it up,” he said.
“Just spit it out.”
“What are your intentions with my brother?” he asked.
“To take care of Rowdy until Boone gets back to himself,” she said, setting her basket down to face him. “Why?”
“I’m just curious,” he said. “Boone thought I sen
t you, but you sent yourself.”
“I’d want someone to do that for me if my entire world fell apart so quickly,” she said. “Wouldn’t you?”
“My world fell apart months ago,” he said.
“Is your heart that hard?”
“Depends.”
“On?”
“I think it’s a choice,” he said, “a decision.”
“What are you trying to decide on?” Stephani asked. “Is there something you want to say to me?”
His finger went to the scar on his face. It wasn’t as prominent as before. It seemed to be fading with time, but it would always be there and he would always be aware of it. He forced his hands back in his pockets, closed his mouth.
“C’mon man,” she said.
“I just don’t think Boone is going to pull out of this,” he said. “Even if he does, I’m not sure he’s going to be the kind of man you need or deserve.”
“I’m doing this for Rowdy, too” she said.
“But you like him,” he said. “Boone.”
“Of course, I do,” she said. “But I like you, too. And Logan and Ryker and a bunch of other people. Are we not a community? Do we not prop up those who would’ve fallen on their own without us?”
“Yes, but—”
“But what?” she asked, hands on her hips.
“Why are you mad at me?”
“Because you’re beating around the bush,” she said. “Don’t be such a pussy.”
He clenched his jaw, felt the dog inside him jerking on the chain. There was no room for his heart in this world. It was time to take the leash off.
Instead of answering, he turned and left Stephani there without answers, walking past the gardening group and making his way towards the cul-de-sac. When he got there, he kicked a path straight through the pile of bones, climbed in his truck, then hit the road, not sure of what he could do to stem the growing tide of agitation inside him.
He needed to talk to Boone again. Or maybe he just needed to be alone with his thoughts. Either way, he knew that what he needed right then was family. He headed back to Boone’s house. When he got there, however, the man was not there. Nor was Rowdy. The fact that the front door was standing wide open concerned him.