by Joe McKinney
He adjusted the packs on his shoulders.
“I was just asking.”
“Jesus, Ben, drop it, would you? You always do that. You don’t know when to leave well enough alone. You just keep picking at me.”
“Me?” he said. “I can’t leave well enough alone?” He knew the argument wasn’t going anywhere, and by speaking all he was doing was fueling her fire, but he couldn’t help himself. He said, “Hello? Pot, you’re black.”
“I’m what?”
“It’s an expression,” he said. “The kettle calling—”
“I know the expression. But you’ve got it backward, you moron. It’s the pot calling the kettle black. The hypocrisy is on the pot’s side, not the kettle’s. You’re calling me the pot while you’re ignorant of your own hypocrisy.”
“Hypocrisy? Sylvia, Jesus, I was just asking you what you guys did for glasses.”
She threw up her hands and made an angry huff. “Idiot,” she muttered. Then she turned away and stormed off.
He watched her go. He’d made her mad, and he didn’t understand how the whole thing had gotten so out of control. It was just an honest question. And a not very important one, in the great scheme of things. He should have just let it go.
But it wasn’t all his fault, he reminded himself. She’d been like this since the battle at the farmhouse, since meeting Nate and hearing that he could have saved them all a whole lot of trouble if he’d simply introduced himself to Don Fisher. It wasn’t hard to figure out she was disgusted by that missed opportunity. He was, too. But that didn’t account for her being angry with him.
Or maybe it did. Hell, he didn’t know. It’d been six years since he’d spent any time at all with a woman. More than twenty since he’d lived with one. Most of what he remembered of women was like trying to picture a diamond through a pawnbroker’s grimy yellow display case. But now that he thought about it he did remember that they saw the world differently from men. They weren’t pragmatists. Yes, they had reason. But it wasn’t the same kind of reason that men had. When they thought about a problem, they didn’t think in a straight line, from problem to solution. Their way of thinking made countless loops and diversions on its way to a conclusion. They seemed to thrive on subtext and implied meaning, the kind of things that men just didn’t have the time or patience for. Richardson found the whole thing really aggravating.
“Are you two married?”
“Huh?”
It was Nate Royal talking to him. Avery had paused for a second, then hurried on after Sylvia, leaving Richardson and Nate standing there.
“You sure act like you’re married.”
“We’re not married,” Richardson said. He adjusted the packs on his back and started walking after the women.
“Is she still angry with me?” Nate asked. His expression was wide-eyed and innocent.
“Yeah, I think so,” Richardson said.
“Oh.” Nate walked on sullenly beside him for a few moments before adding, “So, why is she taking it out on you?”
Richardson stopped and looked at him. Nate’s fever had broken that first night after the battle at the farmhouse, and the next morning Richardson had gotten a pair of scissors and a razor and some soap and helped Nate get himself clean. They’d shaved his beard and his head and now all that remained of the shaggy mess that had once hidden his face was a light brown shadow of stubble on his cheeks and the top of his head. He had looked like a refugee from an Iron Maiden concert. Now he reminded Richardson of the wraithlike extras Hollywood movies used to show in Victorian era mental hospitals.
But he didn’t look so bad that Avery Harper hadn’t taken an interest in him. Shortly after his big cleanup, Nate and Avery had actually hit it off quite well. So much so that when Richardson and Sylvia had returned from gathering water and walked into the farmhouse’s entranceway they’d seen Nate on his back on the floor, Avery sitting next to him, his hand on her leg while she laughed at something he was telling her.
“I don’t like that,” Sylvia had said.
“They’re just kids,” Richardson had responded.
“I don’t like it,” she said.
“Sylvia, you taught college. You know how this goes. Kids’ll be kids. You can’t keep ’em apart.”
Sylvia had let out a noise somewhere between a groan and a growl, and with that one gesture she’d made it clear what she thought of Nate and Avery hooking up.
And he’d said a silent prayer for Nate.
“Mr. Richardson?”
“Huh?”
“I said why is she taking it out on you?”
Richardson laughed to himself. “You ever been married, Nate? Lived with a woman, maybe?”
“No. I lived with my dad and his girlfriend before the outbreak. Since then I haven’t had too much time with a woman, if you know what I mean.”
“Yeah, well, I knew Sylvia years back. There’s a history there.”
“You guys—” Nate made a lewd, two-handed pushing gesture, accompanied by a clicking of his tongue “—you know?”
“No. Not that it’s any of your business.”
Nate raised an eyebrow, then shrugged good-naturedly and let it drop.
A few minutes later they reached a slight rise at the edge of town that gave them a good view of the free trading market below. The primitive collection of tents and carts were bordered to the north by the ruins of a large lead smelting plant, to the west by a spaghetti-like tangle of railroad tracks, and to the east by the great expanse of the Mississippi River.
The free trading market was actually a lot larger than it appeared. Many of the more permanent vendors had reclaimed the abandoned boxcars on the railroad tracks and set up shop there. The main hive of shops and vendors were knotted together into lanes on the vast concrete slab that had once served as a loading area for trains and ships, but other vendors—mostly turkey and sheep herders—were spread far to the south, where their animals could drink from a large tributary that curled around the southern edge of old Herculaneum.
“Well,” said Richardson, pointing down at the bustle of humanity, “there it is. The Herculaneum free trading market.”
“Looks like fun,” Nate said. He caught Avery’s eye and gave her a wink. She giggled back at him.
Sylvia’s expression was hard. “There’s not going to be anything fun about it,” she said. “We all need to keep our heads. There’s a pretty good chance Ken Stoler has operatives down there. If so, they’ll be looking for us. We need to be on the lookout for them.”
They headed down a narrow business road, toward the market. There were others on the road with them, women mostly, standing in the doorways of the abandoned buildings. One of the women, a girl actually, no more than sixteen or seventeen, who looked like one of those sad-eyed waifs in the old Feed the World posters, leered at them with a crooked, black-toothed smile. She was skinny as a junkie, but her blouse was open far enough to expose most of her small breasts.
“Hey there,” she called after them. “You lonely?”
Nate veered toward her. “Hey there, yourself,” he said.
“Whatchu want, sweetheart?” the girl said.
Before Nate could answer Richardson grabbed him by the arm and pulled him back toward the middle of the road.
“What are you doing?” Richardson snapped.
“What?” Nate said. He flashed that wide-eyed innocent smile. “What did I do wrong?”
“Just cool it, okay? We can’t afford to draw attention to ourselves.”
Sylvia made another angry huff and walked off. Avery was watching the hooker, who was backing away into the shadows but still smiling at Nate, and her face was a rapidly shifting pattern of emotions, confusion and indignation and jealousy.
She ran after Sylvia. “What was that woman doing?” Richardson heard her ask.
He gave Nate a slap on the shoulder. “Come on.”
The crowds got thicker as they entered the market. It had been a long while since he’d been
around so many people, and Richardson felt his anxiety rising with every passing moment. They brushed against him in a constant shuffle. Vendors bartered with customers, their voices loud, abrasive. A sense of claustrophobia welled up in his chest. He was sweating, breathing fast. He couldn’t stop swallowing.
And then he saw the soldiers from Ken Stoler’s compound. It was a squad of five. They were dressed in the familiar gray T-shirts and black BDU pants, each of them armed with rifles. Richardson watched the man in charge of the squad, saw his head swiveling as he scanned the crowd.
“Sylvia,” he said.
The soldier’s eyes swept over Ben, then came back to him. He squinted at Ben, his mouth turning down at the corners. Three women carrying chickens in birdcages crossed the path between them, and the soldier craned his neck to look over the women.
“I see them,” Sylvia said. “Ben, we have to get out of here.”
“Over there,” Richardson said, and pushed Sylvia and Avery between a pair of tents. Nate was right behind him. They pushed their way to the back of the tents, where they butted up against a brick wall. There was nowhere to go. “Damn it,” he said.
He heard a commotion behind them, people being pushed out of the way.
“Hey,” said the soldier. He and his squad were working their way back between the tents. “Get out here. Now.”
“Ben,” Sylvia said, “what we do?”
Richardson could hear the soldiers coming. Damn, there wasn’t time. “Here,” he said, lifting the skirt of a tent. “Get under here.”
“What are you gonna do, Ben?”
He took a water bottle and splashed some against the brick wall, then he handed the bottle and his backpack full of weapons to Sylvia. “Just get under there, both of you.”
“Hey,” the soldier barked again.
“Hurry, Sylvia.”
She and Avery got down on their bellies and worked their way under the tent flap.
Nate tapped him on the shoulder and said, “Dude, here they come.”
“Got it. Come on, whip out your dick.”
“What?”
“Hurry.” And before Nate could protest further, Richardson unzipped his fly and pulled out his penis and pointed it at the wall. “Do it,” he said to Nate. “Come on, hurry.”
Nodding slowly, Nate did the same right as the soldiers came around the corner of the tent.
“You two,” the soldier said, “turn around. Slowly.”
“Oh man,” Richardson said, feigning surprise. He turned toward the soldier, still holding his penis in his fingers. “You scared me, man.”
The soldier—his rifle was leveled at Richardson—glanced down at Richardson’s penis, then to the wet spot on the wall. His face wrinkled in disgust.
“Ah,” he groaned. “Put that away.”
Richardson did as he was told.
“How come you didn’t answer me?” the soldier said.
“Were you calling me?” Richardson said. “Wow, I’m sorry. I really had to go.” He rubbed the hand he’d been holding his dick with on his pants and stuck it out to the soldier. “I’m Ben Richardson,” he said. “If you were calling me, I’m sorry. I couldn’t hear you.”
The man lowered his rifle. “I’m not shaking your hand,” he said. He pushed his way past Richardson and glanced up and down the alley behind the tents. The rest of his squad was waiting in the gap between the tents. “You guys double back,” he said to his squad. “Search in between the tents.” He turned back to Richardson. “Where you from?”
“Well, gosh. All over,” Richardson said, scratching his head. “This is my first time here in Herculaneum, but I’ve been all over. Mostly, I’ve been up in the northwest. That’s where I met Nate here. We’ve been going around together about two years now.”
“You talk?” the soldier said to Nate.
“He can talk fine,” Richardson said. “But most of what he says just tends to get us in trouble where there was no trouble before. You know what I mean? He’s got a little problem understanding social cues. It ain’t his fault. He fell off a two-story balcony one night when we almost got cornered by some infected and he ain’t been the same since. We go around together. I watch out for him.”
The soldier studied them, nodding slowly. And then, much to Richardson’s relief, he turned and went back to the crowd at the front of the tents.
Watching him go, Richardson let out the breath he was holding.
“That was close,” he muttered.
“What was that about me falling from a balcony?” Nate said.
“You ever read Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, Nate?”
“Huh?”
Richardson smiled. “Well, that guy hasn’t, either, apparently. Good thing.”
“They gone?”
Richardson glanced down at the tent flap. Sylvia was looking up at him. She looked frightened.
“Yeah, they’re gone.” He knelt down next to her and spoke in a whisper. “Sylvia, this isn’t going to work. We’re gonna have to split up.”
“I know. What do you want to do?”
“Nate and I will find us a boat. Can you and Avery make it down to the docks on your own?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Okay. We’ll find somebody. You guys should probably take most of the weapons, too. We need to keep those out of sight. Meet us up at Ferry Street Point.”
“Good luck,” she said.
“Yeah, thanks.”
Nate gawked at all the stuff. He saw vendors with carts full of vegetables and tools and canned goods and jerry cans of gasoline. There were carts loaded down with pornography and dried beef and sacks of flour and nuts and sugar and even one guy selling marijuana. The smell of it caught Nate like a fishhook in his nose and he stopped to stare at the buds hanging from the roof of the vendor’s cart, mouth agape. The buds were so dark in color they almost looked brown, and they were practically dripping with resin. Some of them were as fat as a leg of mutton. The old hippie behind the cart sat puffing on a small brass pipe, his face wreathed in smoke. He gave Nate a knowing smile and a nod.
“Come on,” Richardson said, pulling him away by the arm.
“Dude,” Nate said, “did you see the size of those buds? I ain’t seen weed like that since before the outbreak.”
“And what are you gonna trade for it?” Richardson said.
Nate’s smile slid off his face.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Come on.”
Richardson led him toward the river and into a maze of tents packed together as densely as a hive. They were interconnected, giving total coverage to the patrons inside, shrouding them in shadows. Right away Nate could see they were in some kind of bar. A still was cooking off to his right and the air was thick with the smell of tobacco and wood smoke and stale liquor.
“I don’t see any soldiers,” Nate said.
“Shhh,” Richardson said. “We’ve been lucky so far. But keep your head on straight, okay? These are rough people. Don’t say anything about yourself or what we’re doing here. Just try to be invisible.”
“You sound like Doc Kellogg.”
Richardson gave him a sidelong glance. “Yeah,” he said. “Well, it’s good advice most of the time. Just watch yourself, okay?”
Nate sniffed at the tobacco smoke in the air, his mouth watering. Everywhere he looked people were smoking and drinking, whispering to each other. They glanced up at him as he and Richardson walked into the tents.
“I’m going over there,” Richardson said, and pointed to a pair of old, heavyset women off at one corner of the tents. “Just try to stay out of trouble, okay?”
“Sure,” Nate said. He watched Richardson approach the women. Their expressions grew hard as soon as he started speaking, and a moment later one of the women picked up her drink and walked away. The other stayed, though, frowning while she listened.
Richardson’s advice to try to be invisible felt like a joke to him now that he was on his own. He felt like every eye
in the place was watching him, but he tried to look like he belonged as he quietly scanned the crowd. Most had gone back to their conversations, though a few weren’t even trying to hide the fact that they were staring at him.
“You’re not from around here, are you?”
Startled, Nate turned and saw a girl of about seventeen leaning against a counter to his right. She was smiling at him, her dark eyes sparkling with reflected candlelight. Her dress was open at the neck, and he could see right down the front of it.
“Hi,” he said, his voice cracking as he spoke.
Jesus, he thought, she’s not wearing a bra.
She didn’t say anything. She leaned forward a little more and put her chin in her hand, her elbow on the bar. In the shadows just beyond her face Nate could see her hips swishing back and forth.
“What’s your name, sweetie?”
“Nate,” he said, and swallowed nervously.
Her gaze drifted down his frame, then back up to his face. Her expression seemed to suggest that she liked what she saw.
“Where you from, Nate?”
“Up north,” he said. His throat suddenly felt dry. The girl was giving off vibes that he felt down in his groin.
“They have girls up north, Nate?”
“Girls?” he repeated. Then, regaining some of his self-control, “Yeah, sure, they got girls.”
“You got a girlfriend?”
“A girl—no,” he said, laughing. “I’m a lone wolf, you know?” He glanced behind him and saw Richardson sitting on what looked like a roll of carpet, talking in confidential whispers with the older, heavyset woman. She was smoking a cigar now, not speaking, staring at Richardson through the smoke.
When he looked back the girl had come out from around the counter. She was very close to his right shoulder now, close enough to whisper in his ear.
“A girl gets awful lonely around here, Nate. All these old men. Wanna go out back with me and smoke a joint?”
“You bet,” he said, wincing at the desperate note of enthusiasm in his voice.
She winked at him. “Follow me, Nate.”
She took him by the hand and led him to the back of the maze of tents, where she slipped through the seam.