The Breadwinner Trilogy (Book 3): All Good Things

by Stevie Kopas

  “We’re all going.” Veronica joined Gary and Catherine at the table. “None of this ‘stay behind and wait for us to come back’ crap. If any of us are risking our lives, then all of us are risking our lives. That’s how it should be.”

  Michelle let out a cackle from the couch. “Here I was, thinking I was the crazy one. Just wait ‘til ol’ Benny-boy hears your grand plan. He’ll have you locked away like Rapunzel.” She leaned forward and retrieved her nail file from the floor. “Enjoy your romp in the badlands, ya’ll. Kiddo and I will be waiting for ya to get back.”

  Veronica stomped over to Michelle and slapped the file out of her hand. She wasn’t sure if it was the hangover or the gravity of the situation, but she was not in the mood to deal with Michelle’s bullshit. “I’m not a kid. I’m not stayin’ behind, and neither are you.” She stuck a finger in Michelle’s face, “We are a group and we will do this together. So you’re either with us or you’re not!”

  Michelle was almost stunned, but found Veronica’s confident demeanor amusing and slightly impressive. She snickered. “Alright, alright. Authority looks good on you.” She retrieved the nail file from the floor once more and leaned back.

  Clyde shook his head and went to the sliding glass door; he noticed it had been left open a crack. He slid it to the side and stepped out beside Ben. The morning air was crisp and fresh. The smell of the dead did not reach this high up and it was refreshing to breathe in the cool air and feel the warmth of the sun on his face. He looked over at Ben. “You heard?”

  “Yeah, I heard.” Ben spat out over the railing, not meeting Clyde’s gaze.

  “What do you think?” Clyde lit a cigarette.

  “I think it means we’re all fucked.”

  IX

  Guns were loaded, bags were packed, and words were scarce. Gary had the route mapped and laid out their “simple plans” on the table. Ten miles east of their location was a strip of car lots and a cluster of subdivisions and office complexes. They’d see Andrew and Clyde on their way and split up into two groups to cover as much ground as possible by nightfall. If they ran over on time, they’d at least be able to take cover in one of the homes.

  Veronica grabbed her bag off the bed and readjusted her ponytail, giving herself one last look in the mirror. She frowned at her reflection. Her once-athletic frame appeared malnourished and borderline anorexic. She’d tried not to look in the mirror as much since the world ended, knowing how she felt about everyone else’s appearance. She shrugged and was about to exit her condo when she stopped, spying Samson’s button-up sloppily hanging on one of the dining room chairs. She scrunched her mouth up to the side before snatching it up and tying it tightly around her waist, just in case. She liked having a piece of him with her at all times. She’d never had the forethought to bring something of her own father’s when she and Isaac fled their apartment on that fateful day which seemed so very long ago.

  Veronica pulled the door closed behind her and noticed Clyde standing solo on the breezeway. She thought about simply meeting everyone downstairs as planned, but instead she watched him as he smoked his cigarette; he was clearly distracted, upset. “You know that we’re only doing this because we feel bad about ourselves,” she said to him.

  He raised an eyebrow. “Ain’t that a truth bomb.”

  “I know it sounds shitty, but just let it go, don’t say goodbye to him. It’ll only make things worse.” She casually draped herself on the railing beside him. He knew she was talking about Ben.

  “More truth bombs, courtesy of Veronica…” He raised another eyebrow at the teen, waiting for her to fill in the blanks.

  “Williams.” She snorted, “I guess most of us don’t even know each other’s last names, huh?”

  “Sheeeit,” Clyde drew the word out, “I wish I had been more clever, I would have told ya’ll my name was somethin’ sexy, like Dante or Francisco.” The pair giggled and Clyde placed an arm around Veronica. “You know chica, whatever happens, you gonna be fine, right?”

  She unknowingly picked at her nails. “I used to think so.”

  Clyde flipped his braids over the shoulder opposite Veronica, “Nah, I gotta good feelin’ that you’ll be aight.”

  She sat quietly for a moment longer, considering what he’d said. She looked at Clyde and tried to smile, “I think you will be too.”

  ***

  Ben stood on his balcony, anxiously waiting for Catherine to finish dressing. He gazed out over the crystalline gulf, watching The Dockside bob gently in the calm wake. Just a day earlier, the stormy waters had thrown the poor boat around like a toy. A part of him wanted so badly to say fuck it and get back on that boat, leaving the city of Haven and the bittersweet apocalypse behind him.

  We should have never stopped here.

  A knot formed in his gut and every ounce of his being screamed at him not to leave the security of the Emerald City, but he was the odd man out in a shitty situation.

  Ben could no longer hold in his anger. He kicked at the bag near his feet and balled up his fists, throwing a hard punch, that he immediately regretted, at the solid, steel railing.

  “Fuck!” he screamed in both pain and outrage. “We are surviving here! We are fine! What the fuck are we doing going back out there like this?!” He yelled to no one, face red with exasperation.

  “Ben?” Catherine rushed onto the balcony. “Relax, what’s the matter?” She moved closer and placed her hands on him, one on his back, one on his chest. Her green eyes filled with concern. “Who are you yelling at?”

  He shook his head and smiled, his eyes falling back upon the boat. He exhaled and pulled the short redhead into his arms. “Everyone.” He kissed her gently on the top of her head and closed his eyes, breathing her scent in deeply. He wished he could stand there with her like that forever.

  “Well, nobody’s yelling back.” She let herself sink into his embrace as she rubbed a hand on the small of his back. “Everyone gets to make their peace. I know you’re angry, but you can’t take that away from him.”

  “Then let him go make peace on his own. Why should we go out there, too?” Ben pulled away from her and looked into her eyes.

  “Because that’s what friends do.”

  ***

  Andrew didn’t see his departure from Emerald City as a form of abandonment; he saw it as an awakening for the group he so tenderly cared about. He hoped Ben would realize that. He knew in his heart that Ben would come to his senses once they were out there, once they found a purpose outside these walls.

  “What’s the hold-up?” Andrew asked Gary as he approached him on the breezeway.

  “The bastards are all over the gate. We’ll have to draw them away from the garage.” He tossed Michelle the keys to one of the armored trucks. “You still remember how to handle that thing?”

  She winked, “See ya on the other side.” And with that, they momentarily parted ways.

  The group, for the first time in over two months, exited the building together and stepped onto the pool deck. Gary locked the doors, slowly, as if calculating each hand movement, and led the way once again to the secure outer walkways of the building. Veronica retraced her own steps from their previous journey as she followed closely behind Gary. She turned slightly and snuck a peek behind her, knowing that Samson wouldn’t be there, but imagining that he was. She instead saw Clyde’s somber face. She pondered how much the group had changed in such little time. The closeness she once felt to any of them, the closeness that most of them felt to one another… she turned her head a bit more and spied Ben and Catherine, walking hand and hand.

  At least some of us still feel that closeness.

  They reached the end of the gated walkway and Gary repeated the same process as last time, waiting for each person to pass through the final gate and locking the padlock back into place. Once again he clawed at the earth and carefully buried the keys.

  Veronica read the words once more on the novelty keychain before the dirt covered them. Haven is ho
me.

  She pulled her trusty PVC pipe from the strap on her bag and gripped it tightly. She charged fiercely alongside her companions and melee weapons met undead faces. She reared her arm back and thrust it forward, pipe in hand, knocking the rotting jaw off a walking corpse. She kicked forward, forcing the grotesque thing to the ground. The eater groaned and hissed, its arms stretched, fingers clawing at air. Veronica brought her foot down onto its chest with a grunt, grasping the pipe in both hands above her head.

  “I didn’t think I’d miss this so much.” She said to herself with a smirk as she brought the pipe down in one violent, swift motion, smashing the decayed skull of the eater to pieces.

  ***

  Michelle patiently waited for the rest of the broken group to disappear into the stairwell. She doubled back from the direction of the parking garage and headed for the entrance to the other building. Her heart pounded with excitement as she raced to the forbidden east wing’s doors, grabbing one of her strategically discarded garden lights as she went.

  She pulled the set of keys she’d snagged from Gary’s place out of her back pocket and tapped at the glass.

  “Good morning, pals!” she sang.

  The ferocious dead things behind the double doors pounded against the glass in response to her voice. Before slipping the key into the lock, she slid the metal stake through the handles and made sure it wouldn’t budge. The eaters’ growls grew louder and the stench of death filled the air as she clicked the lock out of place. Her heart nearly stopped as the doors buckled out toward her, but the garden stake served as a good wedge and she nodded in approval.

  The eaters toward the front were desperately trying to thrust their arms through the crack in the door; decaying skin peeled and shredded against the metal as arms shoved forward. The crowd of the dead pressed up against the doors was like an ocean tide, and when a rolling wave of the eaters amassed backward, several limbs snapped off with a crack. A rancid black substance oozed from the corpses and streaked its way down the doors.

  Michelle gagged and backed away, waving a hand at the garden light, “That won’t hold long, don’t worry. It’s all yours.” She spread her arms out wide to the side and spun once, smiling, before jogging back the way she came. “You’re welcome!” she called out to the screaming corpses behind her.

  Michelle had no plans to come back here.

  X

  Once the huddle of eaters were disposed of, Gary rushed the parking gate and unlocked it. The heavy galvanized steel clattered upwards and Michelle pulled the truck onto the street, stopping to let everyone pile into the back.

  Ben was the last one in. He reluctantly pulled the solid door closed behind him and took a seat on the floor next to Catherine. She gently rubbed his shoulder and planted a sweet kiss on his cheek. Michelle spied their affection in the rearview mirror and rolled her eyes, her face flushing crimson with envy. She looked over at Gary, imagining sharing the same apocalyptic romance with the tan, bearded man in the passenger seat and became nauseated. She was satisfied with the meaningless, casual sex they had; that was all it would ever be.

  Her eyes brightened and she grinned from ear to ear when she spotted a roaming group of eaters headed their way. She planted her foot firmly on the accelerator and let out a loud, gleeful cry. The armored truck charged down the trash-ridden street and plowed head-on into the undead. The truck barely rocked from the impact and bodies flew in different directions; over the truck, under the truck, their bones crushed and their bodies mangled. Blood, guts, and black gore covered the windshield. Michelle turned the wipers on and laughed as the grotesque mixture smeared all over the glass.

  “You’re sick,” Gary mumbled under his breath.

  “Thanks,” she responded enthusiastically with a smile. She carried on this way for a few more miles, running the dead off the road in the most obscene manner imaginable. For the most part, the group was unfazed, but it began to wear on them. Even Michelle grew bored of her Grand Theft Auto-ish style of driving and quieted down.

  “Turn left up ahead,” Gary told her. “We’re getting close now.”

  “Doesn’t left take us away from the car lots?” Catherine piped in, reminiscing on the last time she and Desmond had visited one of the dealerships on the strip.

  “It does.” Gary turned in his seat. “But it’ll also take us away from all these creatures out here. The noise will draw them all to us, we’ve got to stash the truck somewhere safe and double back.”

  Catherine nodded. “Good idea.”

  The truck zigzagged down empty side streets, Michelle attempted to confuse the dead by displacing the sound in as many areas as she could. About a half mile off-course from their destination, she spotted a cozy looking one-story home. “How ‘bout here?”

  “Yeah, that’ll do. Pull around the back, there’s no fence.” Gary pointed and she followed directions with ease once more, veering the truck off the road and into the driveway before pulling it around to the back of the old, red brick home. She killed the engine and everyone seemed to hold their breath for a moment, peering out whatever windows they could.

  “I don’t see anything,” Veronica said loudly, startling everyone in the silence.

  “Me neither,” Ben grumbled. “Don’t mean they’re not comin’ though.”

  “Let’s get a move on, then.” Gary was the first to open his door.

  The group exited the truck in silence and adjusted their bags, readying their weapons for the walk to the dealer strip.

  “I think it’s safe to say we know the drill,” Andrew said as he checked the chamber of his weapon before holstering it.

  “No gunfire unless it’s life or death,” Veronica piped up in sing-song.

  “What isn’t life or death out here?” Ben asked as he lit a cigarette, his voice bitter.

  Ben’s question went ignored as the survivors began the march to their destination. He trailed behind and smoked slowly, savoring his cigarette. His nerves sure did need it in that moment. After going for two months with barely any interaction with the undead, it was nearly overwhelming to deal with this many eaters already in such a short period of time.

  There was a late December chill in the air with a bit of humidity to make the cold seep that much deeper into their bones. The previous day’s storm hadn’t done much to help matters, and none of them had dressed appropriately. Before long, though, the constant movement and imminent danger of the dead sped up heart rates and everyone’s foreheads were glistening with sweat.

  They moved quickly and quietly through the ghostly neighborhood. Remnants of the former inhabitants lie strewn about; overturned bicycles, bloodied clothing, the putrid and rotting remains of an eater’s former feast. The front doors to several of the homes were ajar, allowing an eerie peek into the dark and empty houses. Each of the survivors shuddered to imagine what dangers lurked in that darkness. Close quarter combat with the eaters was something none of them were up to dealing with today.

  The group approached the back of one of the massive car lots and crouched low to the ground against a tall chain link fence. Gary pulled a pair of bolt cutters from his knapsack and handed them to Andrew, who quickly went to work on the fence.

  “I’m surprised we haven’t seen any of them things in a while,” Clyde said, a cigarette between his teeth.

  “Me too.” Ben folded his arms across his chest and narrowed his eyes. There was a good chance that the majority of the dead followed the maze that Michelle had run in the truck, but chances were slim they’d gotten that lucky. The knot in his stomach seemed to swell with each silent, passing second.

  Andrew finally pulled the fence to the side and motioned for the rest of them to go through. They began jogging up toward the back of the main building, passing row after row of cars that would never be sold. A lone eater slowly crept into sight on their left and abruptly stopped when it noticed the group.

  “See? You spoke too soon,” Andrew said to his brother, pulling his golf club from its plac
e on his hip.

  The eater made a sudden movement, pulling a gun and pointing it in their direction.

  “That’s not a fuckin’ corpse! Get down!” Ben threw Catherine to the pavement and grabbed Veronica by her backpack, pulling her to the ground with him.

  A shot rang out, followed by several male voices shouting to one another. Another gunshot and more shouting, Ben could now hear that these voices sounded angry. Very angry.

  “Is everybody alive?” Gary called out in a hushed whisper from behind an adjacent car.

  “We’re good here,” Ben answered.

  “Us, too,” Andrew responded.

  Clyde pulled both guns from his hips and readied himself for a firefight. “Can you see how many of them we’re dealin’ with?” he asked his brother.

  “Nah, just the one, but I heard at least six of ‘em.” Andrew poked his head up and tried to get a better look. He could see the same skinny white guy with the shitty tattoos scanning the back lot for signs of where the group was hiding.

  Several other tatted-up white dudes were off to the right with some heavy artillery. There was one that stood out to him as the leader; he was the biggest and hadn’t left the top step to the building. He casually smoked a cigar and seemed to be yelling the loudest at his comrades. They were all muscular with shaved heads and nearly identical clothing.

  “Fuck me,” Andrew said under his breath, lowering himself back down.

  “What is it?” Ben shimmied over to Andrew, keeping as low to the ground as possible.

  “Fuckin’ skinheads, man.”

  “Shit.” Ben rolled over and pulled his gun from its holster. “Gary!” Ben tried to keep his voice low. “Gary, we gotta get the fuck out of here!”

  “Where’s Michelle?” The panic was evident in Gary’s voice. “I can’t see Michelle.”