by Pete Aldin
The double row of small studio cabins had been lined up between the Yard's barn and the apple, plum, and cherry orchard, accommodating the burgeoning population. Two and a half years earlier, Sturgis, his wife Tina, her sister Ilsa and Ilsa's boyfriend Mike had left Barnabas Island to come knocking on the farm's metaphorical door. This event came at the start of an influx of non-threatening wanderers, most found by The Downs's scouts in their travels. Sturgis—with navy experience including relief aid—had been a godsend in design and construction, as had Mike, a carpenter who'd been renovating a house on the island at the time of the Collapse. Isla was a professional chef, and Tina's berry farming and home brewing background had come in handy, too. Main Street had been the fledgling community's first real infrastructure project, something to be proud of.
Elliot's boots crunched on the pressed-gravel path between the cabins. He remembered that month of Aussie-style scones and jam and American-style lemonade which they called cordial, of backslapping and high fives. Twenty single-roomed huts, all occupied now. Meager furniture, a single or double bed, sometimes a baby's cradle, a small table and a chair or two, a set of drawers or closet pilfered from other farming properties. Two rows of ten homes with twelve-foot gaps between them and their neighbors and a ten-foot wide path down the middle, clusters of water tanks at either end for washing and drinking water.
The deathly quiet in the Street was a relief to Elliot who really wasn't in a mood for people; normally at this time of day, there were coughs and murmurs, lamplight spilling through an open door, the tang of someone having a quiet cigarette, the good-natured banter around a game of cards. But most were at dinner, the Daves had said. A few worked.
And the others were sick.
Nine, now? How bad is this shit gonna get?
As he cleared the end of Main Street, a sudden scuffling made him whirl with hand on SIG. Then he blew out a breath and reached out to the two dogs running his way. They were sister and brother, two years old. He ruffled their fur, then told them to go patrol. If they'd been humans, they'd have been asking after the other dog, the one he'd left with. Dogs were so much better that way than people. He sighed and continued on—past the experimental Zeer pots used for unpowered refrigeration; past the rows of tomato vines; past the series of concrete-floored and ground-hugging cages for rabbits, for chickens, guarded by a dog run to keep away foxes. He paused to acknowledge the pooch inside the dog run, Wilma, then straightened to stare at the Community Centre and work up the motivation to continue toward it.
The Centre had been erected as a multipurpose hall in the exact middle of the farm where it couldn't be seen from any perimeters, where the creek and dam made it defensible against grass fires. His own digs were over the small creek and hill to his right, a five-minute wander, tantalizingly close. He'd really like to lie down, use up enough of his medicinal stash of bourbon to close his eyes and forget the world...and to shut off the slideshow of faces and bodies he'd been seeing again, ever since the field full of claymores.
Bess.
Radler.
Eames.
McGovern.
The little girl from the resort, just after he'd left Hobart. The burly guy from the same resort.
Lewis and Alyssa's parents.
Tommy Harrison.
Birdy.
"For Christ's sake, stop it," he muttered with one hand in his hair and the other on the Community Centre's doorknob. There was noise from inside but not much of it. Some voices. Dishes and chairs scraped. He smelled fried onions and fish as he took a couple of deep breaths and let them out slow. He twisted the knob and leaned inside, chest constricting.
As the Daves had said, most of the community was here. Conversation was subdued, but still the sound pressed on his head as if the words and noise were pressurizing the room. The air was decidedly warmer and thick with the smells of food and unwashed people. Scanning the tables for Claire, he expected a couple of kids to rush him, fleecing him for any candy he may have found out there. But there were no kids at all. No one under—
He looked around and caught Jimmy's eye before the young man dropped his head, allowing his long hair to cover his face—
No one under eighteen.
A couple people noticed him, smiling tentatively. He nodded, too. Angie had her back to him, deep in conversation with her former-boyfriend Dylan and with a fifty-something mining company accountant named Neil.
Finally, he located Claire in the very back corner, her broad shoulders hunched over a book. A big book. A textbook, maybe. Of course she'd be right back there, like in the old days when convenience stores and supermarkets put the thing you most wanted in the furthest place from the door so you'd have to pass all the other crap and end up buying some of it on impulse. Only here, it was people he'd have to pass, interact with. Twenty people he didn't want to talk to who'd want to talk to him. They'd ask about his mission. They'd ask if he came across any Vikes or scav-rats. They'd ask what he found.
They'd ask how Bess had performed.
She performed admirably. I just didn't listen to her. I focused on one thing when they attacked, one deader, instead of the many things that make up a situation.
He locked eyes with Kim sitting closest to the door. The Cambodian man smiled and opened his mouth, ready to start up the questions, but Elliot interrupted and asked him to tell Claire to meet him outside. A concerned narrowing of the eyes, but Kim rose to do as asked. And Elliot returned outside to the blessed relief of crisp air and no crowds.
Claire greeted him with a smile, but eyed him carefully, offering him a glass of lemon cordial. She was wearing latex gloves. "The prodigal scout returns. You're back just now?"
"Yep." He took the glass, swallowed some. It was a perfect combo of sweet and sour. "The other two?"
"Back a few hours ago."
"Injuries?"
Claire grimaced. "Both sick."
"Jesus. Same symptoms? But they were gone three days, like me."
"Long incubation period, Faye says. They would have had it when they left."
"And there's nine now?"
"Nine," she confirmed. "One of them's little Abby."
"Jesus," he repeated, picturing the three-year-old's chubby face.
"Yeah. Her mum, too. So. How about you?"
He shook his head, understanding the reason now for her close scrutiny. And the gloves. It wasn't his soul she was worried about for once, just his body. "I'm fine. Who's with them?"
"Only Faye. But we're quarantining."
"It's that bad?"
Claire did a check over her shoulder, then closed the door and stepped away from it. "Two of them could die. Little Abby ..." She reached around to massage a crick from one shoulder. Dark circles marred the skin beneath her eyes. "I wish this wasn't happening."
"Well ... Faye's a nurse. Isn't she training you, too? Just goddamn ... do something."
Elliot recoiled from the uncharacteristic anger in her eyes. "What d'you think we're doing, Elliot?"
"Okay, I'm—"
"It's not like we're working in an emergency department."
"Okay."
"We don't even have a doctor. We're doing all we can."
"I know. I shouldn't have said that."
"Damn right you shouldn't."
"Damn right," he agreed.
She growled, plunging her gloved fists into her cardigan pockets, but her fury was spent.
"New sweater?" he asked and tried a smile.
She laughed once. "See, I told you you're good at small talk. Alyssa made this."
"Thought she might have," he said, gaze running across all the circles in the pattern. Lewis's sister did love her circles. "One more question."
"What?" she sighed.
"You checked the other scouts for bites?"
"Elliot."
"I'm just saying. The symptoms are similar. Remember Alan? What if one of them got bit out there?"
"Elliot, they weren't bitten."
"It can still ha
ppen."
"And it didn't. And if the first ones sick had the zombie virus, they'd have turned by now. It's been four friggin' days. They're plain old-fashioned sick and it's probably a version of the virus that tore up the group that Neil and Dave Two came from. The idiots probably brought it with them." It was very unlike her to cuss anyone for anything; Claire was normally a study in patience and compassion. She growled again and pulled out a hand to slap him in the chest. "Like you reminded me, Faye and I, we know what we're doing."
"Yeah," he said. "You do. You're two thirds of a Council that's doing a damn good job. Although, someone should tell Sturgis to wear better camouflage when he's up on the windmill."
"I'm happy for you to tell him."
"More your job than mine."
"What, you can't tell people what to do? Not the Elliot I know."
"Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that."
She raised her eyebrows, waiting him out.
"Mind if we walk?" he asked and started off anyway, aimed toward the thin creek bisecting the property. He was self-aware enough to know he hated standing still, but not enough to know whether the habit stemmed from Army training or from avoiding Uncle John as a kid. Or perhaps from being male.
When she fell in step with him, he said, "I've been thinking it might be time for me to move on."
"Move on?"
"Leave. I was only ever going to stay a few weeks. That was three years ago."
She didn't reply.
"Three years is a long time, Claire."
"I been here as long, remember? Heng, too. You were already here when Faye arrived. Far as us three Council-bigwigs are concerned, you're part of the furniture."
"See, that's where I disagree. I'm not so much furniture as satellite."
She cocked an eyebrow.
"In orbit," he explained. "Never really settled in."
"Wonderful metaphor. But it's bullshit. You have Angie."
He frowned. "That's ... casual. Angie doesn't care about me, one way or the other." Few women had over the course of his life. And with good reason.
"Really? I'm not so sure about that."
Elliot was. Wasn't he? And what did he feel for her? She had certainly not turned out to be the sociopath he'd feared she was early on. No, sir, she had turned out to be complex, witty, sassy, resourceful. And goddamn if she didn't turn his head each time she passed.
But I'm a card-carrying loner, he told himself. And behind the thought, Uncle John's #1 maxim reminded him in the end, you're all you have. Which made him a little too like John for his own comfort.
"Also," Claire was saying, "you have your five-star tent over there."
"Yeah. You might have noticed that's in the back paddock and a fair distance from the other billets. And you might have noticed I spend as much time outside the fences as in."
"Some people find that makes you mysterious and enigmatic."
"I avoid them the most."
"So you're an introvert. Doesn't mean this isn't your home. We need you here."
"You don't. You have weapons. A secure base. Competent people. You need to tighten things up a little, but you Councilors know what you're doing, you said so yourself."
Waving it off, she added, "You're our family and we are yours."
"See, that's not a good thing. I don't really do family."
"Bullshit," she said again.
"Claire, you don't know me. Not really. My original family didn't do a great job, and I don't think that sets me up to get how families work."
"Elliot. I'm not asking you to be the patriarch."
"The what now?"
"To be our big daddy."
"I'm trying to talk sensibly here."
"Elliot, you had this same conversation last year with Heng when he was Council Head: I'm no good here; I need my space; I never intended to stay."
Elliot ignored that, though he cursed the old coot for sharing the info. "Bottom line. You three are smart and experienced and battle-hardened. So are other people. Like Sturgis. And Angie."
"Sure, but—"
"The Downs hasn't—"
"Settlers Downs," she corrected.
"Settlers Downs hasn't been attacked since we took it. The closest people groups want to leave us alone. Nine Mile River think we're scav-rats, and they keep their distance. And me..."
"You what."
"Never mind."
"You what, Elliot?"
"I'm making mistakes, all right? I'm goddamn sloppy. They started when I met Lewis and they haven't stopped. And lately they're getting worse."
"I'm not aware of any mistakes. What mistakes?"
"You know the biggest one: lying to Lewis about his sister."
"Sure and he might be angry, but I'm not so sure it was a mistake. Can you imagine him walking into that Druid compound and trading fire? Imagine if there'd been more of them than there was. You got Alyssa back for him. He's a smart young man. He owes you his life and hers. One day he'll see it."
"I got the dog killed today." He rubbed at his throat, surprised at the constriction there, the break in his voice.
She flinched at that, missing her step on the creek bank. "Bess? Oh-Kay. How'd that happen?"
He told her about the field as they wandered the creek, while the encroaching dusk snuffed out what was left of the daylight. It was almost dark by the time he'd finished and they'd turned back toward the Centre.
She said, "Bess was a fine animal. But she was an animal. One of the reasons you're breeding and training them is to protect us. I'd say that made today a success."
"You don't get it." He didn't know why he opened up to Claire. It had become a habit, a bad one. She had a way of getting around his goddamn defenses. Maybe she was a little bit like Tommy Harrison's mother. Maybe it was some kind of life change that went with being in his forties now—and that was a really shitty idea.
"No, I don't get it," she agreed. "So elucidate."
"I need time out there. To sharpen up. No safety net. No dogs. No Downs to come running back to."
"Sharpening up your skill set, check. What else?"
"If I'm on my own, if I get myself hurt or killed, then fine. But if I get someone else hurt or killed, not fine. Not at all fine. And it'll happen. Sometime. I'll screw up when—"
"Elliot, this is about Woodsy, isn't it?"
"What?"
"You didn't want to let him in, but everyone else voted against you."
"It's not about him. What am I, some limp-ass who cares about being outvoted? You people want to let a guy like him in, that's your business."
"It's your business, too. That's the problem. You don't want him here, but he's here. To stay."
"Folks are entitled to their opinion. Even if it's stupid."
"Sure. That's democracy."
"In its very essence."
"And the fact that even Angie didn't listen to you?"
"Why should that matter?"
"You do care about her."
"Do I, now?"
"She cares about you. I see the way she looks at you when you're getting ready to go out that gate."
He laughed outright at that. Angie and warm fuzzy feelings: not a correlation he'd ever observed.
"You've been an item how long?" she pressed gently.
"Item! Don't confuse the occasional roll in the hay with romance, Councilor Claire. And don't confuse me with a brain-dead kid who needs your mothering."
Her expression and her posture hardened, the shift obvious even in the failing light. "And don't confuse me with some village biddy who wants you to settle down and raise rosy-cheeked children. For good or bad, I was one of the people elected to run this place this year. If our best warrior, our best scout, our best tactician decides to run away into the bush, then we've got a much harder job. Our job's hard e-bloody-nuff as it is."
"And maybe I've done enough for other people. Maybe it's time to think about me. I need my goddamn space."
"You wanna roam around out th
ere among the bikers and scav-rats?"
"The scav-rats are too crazy to be much threat. The bikers killed each other off ages ago."
"We don't know that."
"Dave One and Janice said they did. The aftermath looked pretty obvious to me when I saw it. Pretty sure you were there, too. That's right—you had a front row seat. And then there's the one time I got a decent conversation with a Vike and he confirmed it, too."
"Vikes could be bikers."
The Centre was back in sight now, the door open and clusters of people dribbling from within. The lights were running, powered by the solar panels on the roof. Elliot had no intention of going in there, so he stopped. He was thinking of the next thing to say when Claire jumped in.
"Elliot. You have one reason for leaving. I have several for you to stay. We're facing a possible epidemic. We lose people and it could make us vulnerable to the Nine Mile River group if they come calling. Or the Vikes and scavs, if they're not as harmless as you think they are. And if you really believe Woodsy is bad people, and you really don't want us to get hurt, why would you leave with him still here?"
Elliot ground his heel into the soil and his teeth together. Goddamnit, she had him there. Woodsy was out there now, walking the fence and no doubt carrying a weapon Elliot had liberated from the Death Druids.
"Exactly why do you think he's so bad anyway?"
"I talked this through with Faye—"
"Talk it through with me."
He took a deep breath and blew it out slow. "All right. A guy shows up on a police bike, carrying police-issue handguns and everyone believes he's a cop. Believing he's a cop somehow makes him trustworthy."
"Not answering my question, Elliot."
"He says he was part of a bigger group and they're all dead. How do we know he's not the killer?"
"Woodsy's a serial killer?"
"How do we know he didn't kill three cops and take a bike? How do we know he wasn't a crooked cop?"
There was always the small possibility of incursion from an unknown group to their south. There'd been two old women left alive at the end of the Battle for The Downs—enemies. Favoring mercy, they had released the women to wander south and never return. They might have died. Or they may have joined a coastal faction, provided intel on their former home, prompted someone in their group like Woodsy to eventually infiltrate.