“I’m fine … please, Josh … you have to stop before you kill him.”
Josh starts to say something else but stops himself. He turns and looks down at the man on the ground. Over the course of that terrible, silent pause—as Josh moves his lips but is unable to make a sound or put a thought into words—he sees the deflated body on the ground, lying in a pool of its own fluids, as still and lifeless as a bundle of rags.
FOUR
“Hold still, honey.” Bob Stookey gently turns Lilly’s head so he can get a better angle on her fat lip. He carefully dabs a pea-sized amount of antibiotic on the split, scabbed flesh. “Almost done.”
Lilly jerks at the pain. Bob kneels next to her, his first-aid kit open on the edge of the cot on which Lilly lies prone, staring up at the canvas ceiling. The tent glows with the pale rays of late-afternoon sun, which shine through the stained fabric walls. The air is cold and smells of disinfectant and stale liquor. Lilly has a blanket draped across her bare midriff and bra.
Bob needs a drink. He needs one badly. His hands are shaking again. Lately, he’s been flashing back to his days in the U.S. Marine Hospital Corps. One tour in Afghanistan eleven years ago, emptying bedpans at Camp Dwyer—it seems like a million light years away—could never have prepared him for this. He was on the sauce back then as well, barely made it out of Medical Education and Training in San Antonio due to the drinking, and now the war has come home for Bob. The shrapnel-riddled bodies he patched in the Middle East were nothing compared to the battlefields left behind in the wake of this war. Bob has dreams of Afghanistan sometimes—the walking dead mingling and infecting the ranks of the Taliban in Grand Guignol fashion—the cold, dead, gray arms sprouting from the walls of mobile surgical suites.
But patching Lilly Caul is an altogether different proposition for Bob—far worse than being a battlefield medic or cleaning up the aftermath of a walker attack. Bingham did a number on her. Best Bob can tell, she has at least three busted ribs, a major contusion to her left eye—which may or may not involve a vitreous hemorrhage or even retinal detachment—as well as a nasty series of bruises and lacerations to her face. Bob feels ill-equipped—both in technique and medical supplies—to even pretend to treat her. But Bob is the only game in town around here, and so he has now jury-rigged a splint of bedsheets, hardback book covers, and elastic bandages around Lilly’s midsection and has applied his dwindling supply of antibiotic cream to her superficial wounds. The eye worries him the most. He needs to watch it, make sure it heals properly.
“There we go,” he says, applying the last daub of the cream to her lip.
“Thanks, Bob.” Lilly’s speech is impeded by the swelling, a slight lisp on the s. “You can send your bill to my insurance company.”
Bob lets out a humorless chuckle and helps her pull her coat back over her bandaged midsection and bruised shoulders. “What the hell happened out there?”
Lilly sighs, sitting up on the cot, gingerly zipping the coat and cringing at the stabbing pains. “Things got a little … carried away.”
Bob finds his dented flask of cheap hooch, sits back on his folding chair, and takes a long medicinal swig. “At the risk of stating the obvious … this ain’t good for anybody.”
Lilly swallows as though trying to digest broken glass. Tendrils of her auburn hair dangle in her face. “You’re telling me.”
“They’re meeting right now in the big top about it.”
“Who is?”
“Simmons, Hennessey, some of the older guys, Alice Burnside … you know … sons and daughters of the revolution. Josh is … well, I’ve never seen him like this. He’s pretty messed up. Just sitting on the ground outside his tent like a sphinx … ain’t saying a word … just staring into space. Says he’ll go along with whatever they decide.”
“What does that mean?”
Bob takes another healthy sip of his medicine. “Lilly, this is all new. Somebody murdered a living person. These people ain’t dealt with anything like this before.”
“‘Murdered’?”
“Lilly—”
“That’s what they’re calling it now?”
“I’m just saying—”
“I gotta go talk to them.” Lilly tries to stand but the pain drives her back to the edge of the cot.
“Whoa there, Kemo sabe. Take it easy.” Bob leans over and gently steadies her. “I just gave you enough codeine to calm a Clydesdale.”
“Goddammit, Bob, they’re not going to lynch Josh for this, I’m not gonna let that happen.”
“Let’s just take it one step at a time. You ain’t goin’ nowhere right now.”
Lilly lowers her head. A single tear wells up and drips from her good eye. “It was an accident, Bob.”
Bob looks at her. “Maybe let’s just focus on healing right now, huh?”
Lilly looks up at him. Her busted lip is swollen to three times its normal size, her left eye shot with red, the socket already blackened and bruised. She pulls the collar of her thrift shop overcoat tighter and shivers against the cold. She wears a number of oddball accessories that catch Bob’s eye: macramé bracelets and beads and tiny feathers woven into the tendrils of amber locks falling across her devastated face. It’s curious to Bob Stookey how a girl can still pay attention to fashion in this world. But that is part of Lilly Caul’s charm, part of the fiber of her being. From the little fleur-de-lis tattoo on the back of her neck to the meticulous rips and patches in her jeans, she is one of those girls who can make ten dollars and an afternoon at a secondhand store stretch into an entire wardrobe. “This is all my fault, Bob,” she says in a hoarse, somnolent voice.
“That’s a load of crap,” Bob Stookey counters after taking another pull off the tarnished flask. Maybe the liquor has begun to loosen Bob’s lips, because he feels a twinge of bitterness. “My guess is, knowin’ that Chad character, he’d been asking for this for a while now.”
“Bob, that’s not—”
Lilly stops herself when she hears the crunch of footsteps outside the tent. The shadow of a leviathan falls across the canvas. The familiar silhouette pauses for a moment, lurking awkwardly outside the zippered front flap of Bob’s tent. Lilly recognizes the figure but says nothing.
A huge hand gently folds back the tent flap and a large, deeply lined brown face peers in. “They said I could—they gave me three minutes,” Josh Lee Hamilton says in a choked, sheepish baritone.
“What are you talking about?” Lilly sits up and stares at her friend. “Three minutes for what?”
Josh kneels in front of the tent flap, looking at the ground, struggling to tamp down his emotions. “Three minutes to say good-bye.”
“Good-bye?”
“Yeah.”
“What do you mean, ‘good-bye’? What happened?”
Josh lets out a pained sigh. “They took a vote … decided the best way to deal with what happened was to send me packing, kick me outta the group.”
“What!”
“I suppose it’s better than gettin’ hung from the highest tree.”
“You didn’t—I mean—it was completely accidental.”
“Yeah, sure,” Josh says, staring at the ground. “Poor fella accidentally bumped into my fist a whole bunch of times.”
“Under the circumstances, though, these people know what kind of man—”
“Lilly—”
“No, this is wrong. This is just … wrong.”
“It’s over, Lilly.”
She looks at him. “Are they letting you take any supplies? One of the vehicles maybe?”
“I got my bike. It’ll be okay, I’ll be awright…”
“No … no … this is just … ridiculous.”
“Lilly, listen to me.” The big man pushes his way partially into the tent. Bob glances away out of respect. Josh crouches down, reaches out and gently touches Lilly’s wounded face. From the way Josh’s lips are pressed together, the way his eyes are shimmering, the lines deepening around his mouth, it’s clear he’
s holding in a tidal wave of emotion. “This is how it’s gotta play out. It’s for the best. I’ll be fine. You and Bob hold the fort down.”
Lilly’s eyes well up. “I’ll go with you, then.”
“Lilly—”
“There’s nothing for me here.”
Josh shakes his head. “Sorry, babydoll … it’s a single ticket.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“Lilly, I’m real sorry but that ain’t in the cards. It’s safer here. With the group.”
“Yeah, it’s real stable here,” she says icily. “It’s a regular love fest.”
“Better here than out there.”
Lilly looks at him through ravaged eyes, tears beginning to track down her battered face. “You can’t stop me, Josh. It’s my decision. I’m coming along and that’s all there is to it. And if you try and stop me, I will hunt you down, I will stalk you, I will find you. I’m coming with you and there’s nothing you can do about it. You can’t stop me. Okay? So just … deal with it.”
She buttons up her coat, slips her feet into her boots, and starts gathering up her things. Josh watches in dismay. Lilly’s movements are tentative, interrupted by intermittent flinches of pain.
Bob exchanges a glance with Josh, something unspoken yet powerful passing between the two men, as Lilly gets all her stray items of clothing stuffed into a duffel bag and pushes her way out of the tent.
Josh lingers in the mouth of the tent for a moment, looking back in at Bob.
Bob finally shrugs and says with a weary smile: “Women.”
* * *
Fifteen minutes later, Josh has the saddlebags of his onyx Suzuki street bike brimming with tins of Spam and tuna fish, road flares, blankets, waterproof matches, rope, a rolled-up pup tent, a flashlight, a small camp stove, a collapsible fishing rod, a small .38 caliber Saturday night special, and some paper plates and spices cribbed from the common area. The day has turned blustery, the sky casting over with ashy dark clouds.
The threatening weather adds another layer of anxiety to the proceedings as Josh secures the luggage bags and glances over his shoulder at Lilly, who stands ten feet away on the edge of the road, shrugging on an overstuffed backpack. She cringes at a sharp pain in her ribs as she tightens the straps on the pack.
From across the property, a handful of self-proclaimed community leaders look on. Three men and a middle-aged woman stand stoically watching. Josh wants to holler something sarcastic and withering to them but holds his tongue. Instead, he turns to Lilly and says, “You ready?”
Before Lilly can answer a voice rings out from the east edge of the property.
“Hold on, folks!”
Bob Stookey comes trundling along the fence with a large canvas duffel slung over his back. The clanking rattle of bottles can be heard—Bob’s private stock of “medicine,” no doubt—and there’s a strange look on the old medic’s face, a mixture of anticipation and embarrassment. He approaches cautiously. “Before y’all ride off into the sunset, I got a question for ya.”
Josh gives the man a look. “What’s going on, Bob?”
“Just answer me one thing,” he says. “You got any medical training?”
Lilly comes over, her brow furrowed with confusion. “Bob, what do you need?”
“It’s a simple question. Do either of you yahoos got any legitimate medical credentials?”
Josh and Lilly share a glance. Josh sighs. “Not that I know of, Bob.”
“Then let me ask you something else. Who in the flying fuck’s gonna watch that eye for infection?” He gestures toward Lilly’s hemorrhaged eye. “Or keep tabs on them fractured ribs for that matter?”
Josh looks at the medic. “What are you trying to say, Bob?”
The older man shoots a thumb at the row of vehicles parked along the gravel access road behind him. “As long as y’all are gallivanting off into the wild blue yonder, wouldn’t it make more sense to do it with a certified U.S. Marine Medical Corpsman?”
* * *
They put their stuff in Bob’s king cab. The old Dodge Ram pickup is a monster—pocked with rust scars and dents—with a retrofitted camper top on the extended cargo bay. The camper’s windows are long and narrow and as opaque as soap glass. Lilly’s backpack and Josh’s saddlebags go in through the rear hatch, and get wedged between piles of dirty clothes and half-empty bottles of cheap whiskey. There’s a pair of rickety cots back there, a large cooler, three battered first-aid kits, a tattered suitcase, a pair of fuel tanks, an old leather doctor’s bag that looks like it came from a pawnshop, and a phalanx of garden implements shoved against the firewall in front—shovels, a hoe, a few axes, and a nasty-looking pitchfork. The vaulted ceiling rises high enough to accommodate a slouching adult.
As he stows his bags, Josh sees scattered pieces of a disassembled 12-gauge shotgun, but no sign of any shells. Bob carries a .38 snub-nose, which probably couldn’t hit a stationary target at ten paces with no wind—and that’s if and only if Bob is sober, which is rarely the case. Josh knows they will need firearms and ammunition if they want a fighting chance of survival.
Josh slams the hatch and feels somebody else watching them from across the property.
“Hey, Lil!”
The voice sounds familiar, and when Josh turns around, he sees Megan Lafferty, the girl with the ruddy brown curls and unhinged libido, standing a couple of car lengths away, next to the gravel shoulder. She holds hands with the stoner kid—what’s his name?—with the stringy blond hair in his face and the ratty sweater. Steve? Shawn? Josh can’t remember. All Josh remembers is putting up with the girl’s bed-hopping all the way from Peachtree City.
Now the two slacker kids stand there, watching with buzzardlike intensity.
“Hey, Meg,” Lilly says softly, somewhat skeptically, as she comes around the back of the truck and stands next to Josh. The sound of Bob banging around under the truck’s hood can be heard in the awkward silence.
Megan and the stoner kid approach cautiously. Megan measures her words as she addresses Lilly: “Dude, I heard you were like taking off for higher ground.”
Next to Megan the stoner giggles softly. “Always up for getting higher.”
Josh shoots the kid a look. “What can we do for you fine young people?”
Megan doesn’t take her eyes off Lilly. “Lil, I just wanted to say … like … I hope you’re not like pissed at me or anything.”
“Why would I be pissed at you?”
Megan looks down. “I said some things the other day, I wasn’t really thinking straight … I just wanted to … I don’t know. Just wanted to say I was sorry.”
Josh glances over at Lilly, and in that brief moment of silence before she responds, he sees the essence of Lilly Caul in a single instant. Her bruised face softens. Her eyes fill with forgiveness. “You don’t have to be sorry for anything, Meg,” Lilly tells her friend. “We’re all just trying to keep our shit together.”
“He really fucked you up bad,” Megan says, pondering the ravages of Lilly’s face.
“Lilly, we gotta get going,” Josh chimes in. “Gonna be dark soon.”
The stoner kid whispers to Megan, “You gonna ask them or what?”
“Ask us what, Meg?” Lilly says.
Megan licks her lips. She looks up at Josh. “It’s totally fucked up, the way they’re treating you.”
Josh gives her a terse nod. “Appreciate it, Megan, but we really have to be taking off.”
“Take us with you.”
Josh looks at Lilly, and Lilly stares at her friend. Finally Lilly says, “Um, see, the thing is…”
“Safety in fucking numbers, man,” the stoner kid enthuses with his dry little nervous pot giggle. “We’re like totally in warrior mode—”
Megan shoots her hand up. “Scott, would you put a cork in it for two minutes.” She looks up at Josh. “We can’t stay here with these fascist assholes. Not after what happened. It’s a fucking mess here, people don’t trust each other anymore.”
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Josh crosses his big arms across his barrel chest, looking at Megan. “You’ve done your share to stir things up.”
“Josh—” Lilly starts to intercede.
Megan suddenly looks down with a crestfallen expression. “No, it’s okay. I deserve that. I guess I just … I just forgot what the rules are.”
In the ensuing silence—the only sounds the wind in the trees and the squeaking noises of Bob futzing under the hood—Josh rolls his eyes. He can’t believe what he’s about to agree to. “Get your stuff,” he says finally, “and be quick about it.”
* * *
Megan and Scott ride in back. Bob drives, with Josh on the passenger side and Lilly in the narrow enclosure in the rear of the cab. The truck has a modified sleeping berth behind the front seat with smaller side doors and a flip-down upholstered bench that doubles as a bed. Lilly sits on the tattered bench seat and braces herself on the handrail, every bump and swerve coaxing a stabbing pain in her ribs.
She can see the tree line on either side of the road darkening as they drive down the winding access road that leads out of the orchards, the shadows of late afternoon lengthening, the temperature plummeting. The truck’s noisy heater fights a losing battle against the chill. The air in the cab smells of stale liquor, smoke, and body odors. Through the vents, the scent of tobacco fields and rotting fruit—the musk of a Georgia autumn—is faintly discernible, a warning to Lilly, a harbinger of cutting loose from civilization.
She starts looking for walkers in the trees—every shadow, every dark place a potential menace. The sky is void of planes or birds of any species, the heavens as cold, dead, and silent as a vast gray glacier.
They make their way onto Spur 362—the main conduit that cuts through Meriwether County—as the sun sinks lower on the horizon. Due to the proliferation of wrecks and abandoned cars, Bob takes it nice and easy, keeping the truck down around thirty-five miles an hour. The two-lane turns blue-gray in the encroaching dusk, the twilight spreading across the rolling hills of white pine and soybeans.
“What’s the plan, captain?” Bob asks Josh after they’ve put a mile and a half behind them.
The Walking Dead Collection Page 38