But which Jack is going to win out?
Suddenly, a light pops on in my head. A compromise comes to me. I can save the people and get the other car. That way Lilly and I can safely part ways. Traveling by car is much safer than by horse. But will she go for that?
I guess I’ll have to find out.
“What?” Lilly’s eyes are as big as two moons. “Go, man!” she says.
“I can’t.” I cut the wheel again and turn toward the direction of the farm.
“Jack,” Lilly says. “We don’t have to go there.”
I think of Darlene, of Junior, of Norm, of Abby. The man I was when they were with me, when our family was strong and together, would not let such injustices go unpunished.
“Yes, we do,” I say. “What they’re doing to those people isn’t right. You saw what I saw. Imagine what they’re doing to the others that we couldn’t see.”
“You’re going to risk everything for some unknown people?” Lilly asks, her face a mask of utter disbelief.
Yes, I think, and then we’ll each have our own working vehicles and we can go our separate ways. I know we have common interests, but I can’t stomach more innocent blood on my hands. What would Darlene think if she knew I was going to let those people suffer, if she knew I planned on ditching Lilly and Bilbo in the middle of District country? She’d tell me I’m a dumbass and probably slap me, which is less than I deserve.
“Yeah, I guess I am,” I say.
Lilly shakes her head—she’s quite good at that. I’m expecting her to argue with me, to tell me I’m absolutely crazy. It’s not my fault. I know if I let whatever’s going on at that farm continue, I’ll never get the images of a group of malnourished and miserable human beings running from a group of zombies out of my head. She doesn’t argue, but sighs tiredly instead. “All right,” she says. “It’s your call. I trust your judgment.”
And that’s like a slap in the face. No one should trust my judgment. I don’t even trust it, but I’m thinking of Darlene and Junior and all those that suffered at Haven and I just can’t move on in good conscious.
Lilly pulls her gun out of her waistband, unloads the clip to check how many rounds she has left. “Well, what’s the plan?”
A smile appears on my face. Is it a smile to cover up the fear that has taken up residence inside of me? Maybe. Possibly. Probably.
I can’t say for sure. All I know is that this might be one of the stupidest decisions I’ve made in a long time. There’s a large possibility of death or pain. But I don’t care.
I have to look at the bright side. Even if I fail, at least I’ll get to take down a few of those District bastards in the process. That’s worth something, isn’t it?
16
“The plan,” I say, “is pretty simple. But that doesn’t mean it’ll be easy.”
Lilly arches an eyebrow.
“I know.” I’m nodding. “A bit cryptic. Here’s what we’re going to do.”
Apparently my mind is made up. No going back now because I already have a plan. Man, what the fuck is happening to me?
Lilly leans forward to listen more intently. This makes me nervous, like I’m a college professor giving a lecture to a bunch of eager students.
I get out of the truck and open the back again. There’s Bilbo. He looks glad to see me, glad to be free of the darkness. I lead him out. “Yeah, buddy, you’re free for now.” He whinnies in reply. Can’t let myself get attached. I think of Cupcake, think of how much it hurt me to hold him while he withered away to nothing but skin and bones and matted fur. Can’t experience that again.
I go through the weapons, taking one of the assault rifles off the rack. It has a scope on it. I aim down the road. It doesn’t zoom much, but it’ll be adequate enough. Lilly is out now. She watches me.
“Here,” I say, handing it to Lilly. She tests the sight.
“Nice,” she says.
“I’ll drive the truck up to the farm under the pretense of delivery—”
“Bad idea,” Lilly says.
I shrug. Yeah, it is, but what else do we have—
Unless…
We both look over to the clearing in the trees where Duane and Paul are tied, still unconscious.
“Take one of them,” Lilly says.
“You read my mind,” I say.
“Great minds think alike, right?” She nudges me with her elbow.
I nod, businesslike. No need to get jokey with her. Not when I intend to part ways once we get the car.
“If they’re expecting them, they’ll be a better chance that they aren’t suspicious of an unknown tagging along,” Lilly says. She looks through the ACOG again. “So where does that leave me?”
“You ever shot long distance?”
“Not really,” she answers. Uncertainty passes over her features, but it’s so minor that I hardly notice because she’s almost instantly back to her cocky self. “Doesn’t mean I can’t do it.”
“But can you do it from horseback?”
“I can do anything, Jack,” she says. “I’ve survived in this wasteland, haven’t I?”
“Yeah, so have they,” I say, nodding my head in the farm’s direction. “That’s why we can’t underestimate them.”
“Don’t worry, Jack,” she says. “We got this.”
Her confidence surprises me still. I’ve never met someone so fearless, which is stupid. Can’t be fearless in this world.
“You don’t have to do this, you know,” I say.
Lilly laughs. “You put this weapon in my hand, Jack. There’s no getting rid of me now.” She walks toward the trees, where Paul and Duane are. “Looks like our friends are coming back to reality,” she says.
I follow her, bringing Bilbo with me. The wind blows and my skin prickles.
I approach Paul and Duane. Paul is the most alert, blinking almost comically while Duane stirs with his eyes closed, shaking his head back and forth. The wound in his arm isn’t deep. Hardly any blood trickles out of it, but if he wants to keep living, he’ll have to make sure it doesn’t get infected. In a world where infection is rampant, that might be hard.
I bend down and look Paul straight in the eyes. He flinches at my gaze, and that satisfies me.
“Hey there, pal,” I say.
He turns away from my gaze now, shocked over his current predicament.
“You District?” I ask, and the answer lies in the man’s eyes. He looks at me with burning intensity, then, worried that he’s given it away, he looks elsewhere.
“Nah, I ain’t District. Neither is my buddy here. So let us go. He’s bleeding pretty bad and my nuts have swollen up so big I don’t think I’ll be able to sit down for a solid month.”
“That’s if you make it another month, dirtbag,” Lilly says, her upper lip curling and baring teeth.
I put a hand on her arm and give her a look that says Calm down. She nods halfheartedly.
“If you’re not District, Paul, what the heck are you doing driving a U-Haul full of assault rifles and grenades up to a District farm?” I ask.
He still won’t look at me. He keeps looking at Duane, at the bit of blood dribbling out of the small slit in his shoulder. Now that I’m closer, I see I barely broke skin. The bastard hasn’t lost nearly as much blood as he deserves.
“I—we wasn’t. We was just on our way east,” Paul says.
Duane stirs enough to open his eyes. He looks drugged and dazed. I must’ve really thrown him for a loop. Didn’t even know I could punch that hard. I’ll admit, that makes me feel kind of good. Manly.
“What the fuck?” Duane says, slurring, mouth thick with saliva and blood.
“Compromised,” Paul says, and I’m surprised he knows such a big word. “Got jumped.”
“Ah, my fucking shoulder.” Duane turns his head to look at the cause of his pain and his eyes balloon three times their size. Any lethargy is blown away by this sight. “Did you stab me? What the fuck? Why do you have a sword like that? You the fucking Apocalyp
se Knight?”
I chuckle. I like the sound of that one.
“No,” I say. “I’m just a regular guy who doesn’t like the assholes who think of themselves as people in the District.”
Duane spits at me. He doesn’t have enough energy for the bloody loogie to hit my feet—it lands about half a foot away from my boot—but nonetheless, it surprises me. “Well, we don’t like fucking assholes with swords.”
“That how you’re gonna talk to the people who bested you, who stabbed you?” Lilly says. I put my hand up again. She ignores it, narrows her eyes and steps closer to Duane and Paul. “Show us some respect.”
Duane surprises me once more. He spits again, this time getting more power under it. It thwaps against Lilly’s thigh. She looks down disbelievingly, narrowed eyes unsure of what they’ve seen, and then she lunges at him with her fist raised.
I grab her around the waist to hold her back. She bucks and kicks and yells profanities I’ve never even heard, things I think she’s made up but still sound just as dirty and insulting as the big C-word.
Duane has a bloody smile on his face, but Paul is uneasy. He doesn’t like where this is going; he’s scared. I don’t blame him—Lilly is scary right now.
“Lilly, cool it,” I say as calm as I can, but trying to hold her back has left me out of breath. “They’ll get theirs. It may not be from you or from me, but they’ll get it. Trust me. The assholes always do.”
“No. They don’t,” Lilly argues. Her face is red. There’s a sheen of sweat on her forehead. The longer bangs of her short hair stick to her skin. “So sometimes we have to give it to them. We have to give them what they deserve.”
She has changed drastically from when she was telling me to leave them. It’s funny what a guy spitting on you can do to your psyche.
“Yeah, which was exactly what I was going to do earlier, but you told me not to,” I say. “I thought we were going to do this a certain way—“
She shakes her head. All the anger on her face melts. “You’re right, gotta be better than them,” she whispers and tells herself to take a deep breath. She does. Then she takes another one, and another.
“The bitch don’t seem like she like me very much,” Duane says from behind.
“You’re going to regret messing with me,” Lilly says, but then she’s taking another deep breath. It’s almost comical, their exchange.
“And you two are gonna regret fuckin with the District. They do terrible things to bitches like you. Things I don’t even wanna talk about,” Duane says.
Lilly stays calm on the surface. Underneath…well, I think that’s another story.
“So you are District,” I say. Not a question. As if I didn’t know. I’m not surprised, the only bastards around left seem to be District.
“Damn it, Duane!” Paul hisses. “You just don’t know when to keep your big mouth shut, do ya?”
“Oh, c’mon, Pauly, these motherfuckers ain’t stupid. They saw what we’re carrying. They know whose farm that is up there,” Duane argues.
All Paul does in return is shake his head.
“Here’s the deal,” I say, taking my gun out of its holster. Both of the men get this look in their eyes, this look of fear that I like. I hate to admit that, but when you’re the one in control of a situation like this, it feels good. “We’re gonna do this delivery for you.”
“Good luck, buddy,” Duane says. He tries to shrug in his ropes. The movement is not very successful. “Bandit and the boys are expecting us. Me and Paul.”
“That’s fine. Paul will be there,” I say. Seeing Paul’s face twist up in confusion makes me happy.
“I will?” he asks.
“Sure. And I’ll be right next to you, holding a gun on your ribs, just out of sight of any District soldiers.”
“What about me?” Duane asks. “You just gonna leave me here all tied up like a fucking hog.”
There’s a moment of silence as Lilly and I exchange looks. She shrugs. I shrug.
“Yeah, I guess we are,” I answer. “Can’t have your wound and swollen face give us away.”
Duane’s dark skin goes a few shades paler. “You wouldn’t. I’ll scream and they’ll hear me up there.”
“So will the zombies,” Lilly says. “Who do you think is gonna get here first, the District preoccupied with a shipment of weapons or a horde of hungry zombies?”
“The lady has got a point,” I say. “We saw a pretty big horde not too long ago. They looked especially ravenous.”
Duane shakes his head, doesn’t say anything. I walk over to Paul and cut his binds. “All right, Pauly old pal, you ready to get this show on the road?”
His legs are shaky and there’s a deep fear in his eyes, but he nods. I hold my revolver to his back and force him into the car. Lilly comes around the side with me.
“Be careful,” she says.
“I will. You too.” Inside, I’m saying Look at you, Jack, caring about people. But I know this would make Darlene happy. I can feel it.
She nods. “What’s the signal?”
“If you get a clear shot on Bandit, take it, but if you don’t, I guess the signal is whenever you start to hear gunfire,” I answer. She smiles at that then turns to walk back into the forest. Duane is saying something I can’t understand, spouting off obscenities, bloody spit flying. I think, for a moment, that Lilly is going to lay into him, shut him up. She doesn’t. Instead, she takes a knife out. For the slightest of moments, I think she’s about to kill him in front of God and everybody.
Nope.
She cuts the bloody rags around his knife wound and rolls them up into a little ball. Then she goes over to the ropes Paul was wearing and then back to Duane. She stuffs the cut shirt into his mouth and ties the rope tight around his head. Looks like he won’t be screaming at all.
As I get into the truck, we catch eyes again. Hers are alive with adventure, with anticipation. She climbs up on Bilbo, the assault rifle slung over her shoulder, and nods at me. I nod back and shut the door.
“Start it up,” I say to Paul.
“You guys are monsters,” Paul says, never looking me in the eye. He does as he’s told. The cab of the truck rumbles to life. Metallica plays softly over the speakers.
“We’re all monsters,” I reply.
17
We arrive at the farm’s gates. Two men stand guard with weapons and grimaces on their faces. One of them sucks on a cigarette then exhales, gray smoke drifting up to the blue sky.
“One word about what’s going on,” I whisper, “and I pull the trigger.”
Paul gulps and nods. “Making a mistake, friend. This ain’t gonna end well for you or that girl.”
“We’ll see about that,” I say. Maybe he is right. Now that we are here at the gate I’m left wondering why I’m doing this. Sure, I’m doing the right thing, I’m going to save these prisoners and take out one of the District’s high ranking officers, but what if I fail? My mouth goes dry. I try to swallow but can’t. My ultimate mission is revenge. Not against this Bandit guy or the other soldiers here, but against the one-eyed man. I know he’s in Ohio. So what am I still doing here in Illinois?
Somewhere from the ether, I hear a voice. It sounds like Darlene’s. I know that she is gone forever and what I’m hearing is nothing but an auditory hallucination brought on by fear and stress, but it’s nice to hear her voice again so clearly. Even if it is my own imagination.
She says, You’re here, Jack, because you’re a good person. You’re one of the few good people left on this planet.
But am I? In the two years on the road, I’ve done some bad things.
If I was by myself, if I was anywhere else, I would be crying. I nod to that phantom voice and think, I miss you, Darlene. I miss you and Junior more than I can put it to words.
We miss you, too.
Now Paul is rolling down the window, his arm working the crank. The guard with the cigarette jutting out of his mouth approaches. The cigarette rises nearly
to his left eye with his smile. “Pauly!” he says. “How the fuck are you?”
“Good, Chip. Real good. Got a big order for you today,” Paul replies. I no longer have the gun on him, but it’s in hand under my cloak; there’s also an assault rifle tucked between the side of the passenger’s seat and the door, any visible parts obscured by my body. I’m sweating, my skin sticking to my shirt.
I wish I could hear Darlene’s voice again. Not the hallucination, but the real one, the one that comes straight from her mouth because she isn’t really dead. She’s alive and we’re back at Haven with Junior and Norm and Abby and Tim and Carmen and Eve, all growing old together.
The guard leans in closer, putting a hand on the edge of the window. “Who we got here?” he asks. “Where’s Duane?”
An uncomfortable silence settles between us. There’s tension, too. I hope I’m the only one aware of it. I think Paul is about to answer so I wait. He doesn’t. I begin to open my mouth and just as I speak, Paul laughs and says, “This is Bruce. Didn’t the boss tell you about Duane?”
Another bout of uncomfortable silence. This one doesn’t last as long as the one before it. Chip rubs his chin and says, “No, I didn’t hear about Duane. He all right?”
“Got bit,” Paul says matter-of-factly. “Right on the shoulder. Couldn’t get him to the infirmary in time to amputate.”
The guard takes his hat off and shakes his head. “That’s too damn bad. That son of a bitch owed me coin. Worst Hold ‘Em player I ever met.” A gleam of reminiscence fills his eyes.
“I don’t think he’ll be paying ya back, Chip,” Paul says. “He’s gone. Put his own self outta his misery. It was bad. Real bad.” Paul’s lying ability throws me for a loop. This guy could be a hell of a storyteller.
“No sense in crying over spilled milk. What’s done is done,” Chip says. “He’ll be missed, but we got work to do. Hear the Overlord is planning on expanding soon. Very soon.”
“Heard that, too,” Paul says.
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