by Sam Sisavath
The man nodded at Keo. “Who’s this guy?”
“This is Keo,” Sherry said. “Keo, this is Jonah.”
“Of Jonah’s fame?” Keo asked.
“I don’t know about fame,” the guy named Jonah said. He nodded at the two men with rifles, and they slung their weapons and hurried over to take Sherry from Keo, then walked her over to the Jeep.
“How many were there?” Jonah asked.
“Five,” Sherry said. “I’d be lying out there with Carl and Floyd if it wasn’t for Keo. He saved my life.”
“Thank you,” Jonah said to Keo, and stuck out his hand.
Keo shook it. Up close, the guy was almost a foot shorter than him.
“He’s looking for someone,” Sherry said as she settled into the Jeep’s front passenger seat.
“Someones,” Keo said. “A woman named Emma and her daughter, Megan. They would have fled down here from Winding Creek sometime yesterday morning.”
Jonah shook his head. “The names don’t ring any bells.”
“You didn’t even think about it.”
“I don’t have to. I’m good with names.” He holstered his pistol. “Besides, there were only ten people from Winding Creek yesterday, and there’s no Emma or Megan among them. Sorry.”
“Just ten?” Keo asked.
“The numbers didn’t add up. There are about twenty missing heads from Winding Creek,” Wagner had said to him back in Princeville.
“So how do you know twenty got away?” Keo had asked him.
“’Cause we know how many were in that town, and the count doesn’t add up,” Wagner had answered.
So if twenty got away, why are there only ten people here? Keo thought to himself now.
“More might have gotten out during the attack, I don’t know, but only ten showed up here yesterday,” Jonah said. “Sorry.”
Keo nodded somberly. “Yeah, me too.”
“You’re from Winding Creek?”
“Sort of.”
“‘Sort of?’”
“It’s a long story.”
“I’m sure it is,” Jonah said, and nodded at the driver before climbing into the back of the Jeep. He looked back at Keo. “Come on; maybe it’s your lucky day and I’m wrong, and your friends might have made it and I got their names mixed up. It’s been known to happen.”
The Jeep made a wide U-turn and drove back toward the buildings.
Luck, Keo thought as he climbed onto Horse. What’s that?
TWENTY
AS EXPECTED, luck was not on Keo’s side, and among the ten Winding Creek “refugees,” Emma and Megan weren’t two of them. In some ways, not finding both mother and daughter was better than finding one but not the other. Of course, that could have just been Keo trying to see the positive of a shitty outcome.
The survivors were all women except for one man, someone named Breckin, whom Keo didn’t know. They were being housed in one of the buildings that were half-finished, which had since been converted into a big dorm, with cots for sleeping and a communal eating area. There were fifteen other people there, all refugees from two other towns that had been raided by Buck and his people. After seeing how well-armed and trained the Buckies were, Keo had to admit that twenty-five survivors were more than he had expected.
Fortunately, one of the Winding Creek women was someone Keo did know—Christine, who lived just two houses down from Emma. She had somehow made it out with her daughter, Jordan, but one look at her face when Keo asked about her husband Gerry told him everything.
They left Jordan and the others and walked out onto the outside deck, where two guys with AR rifles stood guard. They both had binoculars and were keeping a vigilant eye on the wide-open field behind them—all one mile or so of it—with the wall of trees in the distance. The outside deck wrapped around the house like a ring, allowing them to keep watch on every side, though at the moment the only one that mattered was north.
Keo spotted four boats moored on the beach—a couple of fishing vessels and two rowboats. They looked beaten and faded but in one piece. Keo wasn’t a math whiz by any stretch of the imagination, but there were way more people in Jonah’s than there were boats to accommodate them.
I guess escape by sea’s out of the question. For the majority of the people here, anyway.
He didn’t have to glance at his watch to know night was coming. He could see it in the fading sunlight over the Gulf of Mexico and the slowly darkening sand. A shadow moved over him and Christine as they leaned against the railing as the sentry on the rooftop changed up his position.
“I don’t know what happened to them,” Christine said. “It was so chaotic. Everyone was running, and there was so much shooting.” She paused and gripped the wooden railing. “We wouldn’t have made it out if it wasn’t for Lewis.”
“He was sure they had both gotten out,” Keo said.
“Then they probably did. I don’t think he would lie about that.”
“He wouldn’t. He didn’t have any reasons to.”
“They probably got out after we did. It was so chaotic…” She paused again. “They might still be on their way here. It’s only been a day.”
A lot of things can happen in a day, Keo thought, but he said instead, “But if they didn’t come here, you have any ideas where else they might have gone?”
Christine shook her head. “I’m sorry, Keo, I don’t. I wouldn’t even think to come here if Lewis hadn’t told us to.” She might have trembled slightly. “God, why did they do that? Why did they just come into town and kill everyone?”
Not everyone, Keo thought, remembering what Wendy had told him.
“The babies. They took all the babies.”
“How long have you guys been trading with Jonah’s?” he asked Christine. “How did Lewis know about this place?”
“Lewis and Vince left Winding Creek a year after The Walk Out, but they came back every now and then, just to catch up. I hadn’t seen them for two years before they showed back up yesterday. I guess that’s how they know about trading with Jonah’s.”
“And you can’t think of any other place Emma might have taken Megan?”
“I’m sorry, Keo. I don’t know.”
Keo nodded and gave her his best attempt at a reassuring smile. “It’ll be dark soon, so I won’t be going anywhere until tomorrow. If you remember anything—anything at all—don’t hesitate to let me know. And ask the others, too.”
Christine nodded. “I will. Maybe someone will know something.” She hesitated, and he could see her struggling with something.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Who else made it? It can’t just be the ten of us, can it? Out of the whole town? It can’t be just the ten of us left, can it, Keo?”
He remembered Wendy again, her husband Rick lying dead in their living room, and all the bodies the Buckies had left behind for the animals (and other things) to take care of.
“A lot of other people could have made it out,” he said, hoping it was at least semi-convincing. “They could have gone somewhere else instead of coming here, just like Emma and Megan.”
While Keo was busy talking with Christine, Jonah had sent his men back out into the fields to recover Carl and Floyd’s bodies. They also returned with the Buckies’ gear and weapons but had left the dead men out there.
Keo found Jonah a good five-minutes’ walk from the settlement. Sherry was also there, along with two others that were digging graves for Carl and Floyd, far enough from the beach and water that they wouldn’t be washed away. There were already four other graves there, but none that looked too recent.
Sherry had cleaned the paint off her face and was wearing new clothes. Her waist was heavily bandaged, but she didn’t look like she was in pain as she watched the graves being dug, only looking away when Keo showed up.
“Did you find your friends?” she asked.
Keo shook his head. “They’re not here.”
“They didn’t make it?”
�
��I think they did. Someone assured me they did.”
“But they’re not here,” Jonah said.
“No,” Keo said.
“You think they might have gotten lost on the way over?” Sherry asked.
“I don’t know,” Keo said. “Christine didn’t see them, and neither did anyone else on the way over.” Keo looked off into the fields. “This place isn’t exactly a hop, skip, and a jump away from Winding Creek. There’s a lot of miles to cover.”
“A lot of things could happen out there. Especially these last few weeks.”
“How long ago did the others show up?”
“The ones from Dresden was two weeks ago,” Jonah said. “That’s when we got wind of what was happening. The guys from Juno were just six days earlier.”
“Why exactly did they all come here?” Keo asked.
Jonah shrugged, and from his expression, Keo thought he had probably been asking himself that question for a while, too. “Your guess is as good as mine,” the man said. “It’s not like we ever put out a sign that said, ‘Come here if you’re in trouble.’” He looked over at Carl and Floyd’s bodies, both wrapped in blankets, waiting nearby on the ground. “We’re just trying to get by. We trade for what we need, and truth be told, I haven’t left this area in three years, so if you’re asking me why people are coming here seeking shelter, I don’t have a clue.”
“What about you?” Keo asked Sherry.
She shook her head. “I haven’t left this place in four years. Neither had Carl and Floyd. We came here together looking for a place to get lost, to start over on our own terms, and that’s what we found. There’s nothing for us out there.”
Jonah walked over to Keo, then kept going. Keo took the hint and followed him, leaving Sherry and the others still digging behind them.
They headed back toward the houses along the beach, and Jonah didn’t say anything until they were far enough from Sherry and the others that they couldn’t be overheard. Keo found that intriguing. What was it Jonah had to say that he didn’t want the others to know?
“You know who they are, don’t you?” Jonah finally said.
“Who are we talking about?” Keo asked.
“The guys you call Buckies. The ones from Fenton, with the circled M on their vests.”
Keo shrugged. “Maybe.”
“You’re not going to tell me?”
“I could be wrong.”
“You could also be right.”
“Mom always says it’s better to keep silent when you might be right than to speak up when you might be wrong.”
“That’s never stopped me before,” Jonah chuckled.
“You’ve been out there,” Keo said. It wasn’t a question.
“Who hasn’t?”
“You were a collaborator.”
He thought Jonah might have bristled. “Everyone I’ve met used to work for the ghouls. Carl, Sherry, Floyd. Everyone from your town.”
Not my town, Keo thought but didn’t say it.
“What does the word ‘collaborator’ even mean anymore?” Jonah continued.
“True, but there are degrees,” Keo said. “You wore a uniform.”
“I won’t lie; I did. What about you?”
“I wasn’t.”
“Wore a uniform?”
“A collaborator.”
“Then you’d be the first saint I’ve come across in a long time.”
Keo smiled. “No one’s ever accused me of being a saint.”
“What about your mom?”
“She’s called me a lot of things, but never a saint, either.”
Jonah finally stopped walking halfway to the houses. Keo did likewise next to him and watched the waves pouring over the sands from the black sea.
“But the past is the past,” Jonah said. “No point in reliving it. I learned that a long time ago.” That seemed to bring back some memories, and Jonah made a face at the darkening ocean. “Gotta keep on keeping on, as someone once said.”
“Considering what’s happening out there beyond this little paradise of yours, apparently not everyone thinks the same.”
“That would appear to be the case.”
“How long have you been here?”
“Five years.” He nodded down the beach. “I almost died about five miles from here, in this little abandoned marina. There was just me and a lot of bodies.”
“Sounds familiar.”
Jonah grinned. “Which part?”
“All of it.”
“I guess we have a lot in common.” Jonah paused. Then, “Anyway. After I miraculously didn’t die, I walked up the beach and found this little slice of paradise, as you called it. I wasn’t looking for company, but then people started showing up. Before you know it, we’d made ourselves a little community.” He sighed, then pursed his lips and looked back at the fields behind them. “I guess it’s true what they say; all good things must eventually come to an end.”
“What did the Buckies want?” Keo asked. “Sherry said they came here last week.”
“The refugees,” Jonah said.
“And that’s it?”
Jonah shrugged. “That’s all I know. That’s all I want to know.”
“You’re not curious? Why they’re raiding the towns? It can’t just be for the supplies.”
“You’re talking about them taking the women and children?”
Keo nodded. “You know about that, too.”
“The refugees mentioned it. They were concentrating on killing the men but rounding up the women and children.”
“So what’s that all about?”
“I don’t know. Neither did the ones that made it here. They don’t have a clue. But it’s obvious, isn’t it?”
“What’s that?”
“The Answer. Whatever it is, it’s in Fenton.”
“Someone told me a guy named Copenhagen runs the place.”
“That’s what I hear, too.”
“You never traded with them?”
“Once or twice, but I’ve never met the man himself or sent people to Fenton. It’s too far north, and we can get everything we need from Winding Creek, Dresden, Juno, and a half-dozen other places that’s a hell of a lot closer.”
“What do you know about them? The Buckies?”
“Not much…”
“But you know something.”
Jonah nodded. “I know their type. They’re mercenaries. Paramilitary. Whatever you want to call them. Fenton’s not the only one using them, either. Dresden had their own smaller group. Your friends the Buckies wiped them out first.”
“So I take it you didn’t always have guys with rifles on rooftops?” Keo asked, looking up the beach at one such figure crouched on top of one of the buildings now.
“Not even close.” Jonah grunted. “Funny thing is, five years ago I would be running around out there with those guys. But things change.”
“You turned a new leaf.”
“Not quite. More like I adjusted.”
Keo watched some kids and a couple of adults washing themselves in the ocean water. “Why did you let them stay? You had to know what kind of trouble they were bringing with them.”
Jonah followed his gaze. “There was just six people from Dresden at first. I mean, six people, and half of them could barely walk. I don’t know how I could have turned them away. I guess I could have, but it didn’t seem…right.”
“And then more showed up…”
The shorter man sighed. “And then the others showed up, yeah. That was when I knew I had screwed up, but by then it was too late. I might have been the de facto leader of this place because I was here first, but there were thirty-eight others who also called it home, and there was no way they were going to turn down women and children who had been through hell and back.”
Keo glanced over at the black wall of trees in the distance. He wondered how many Buckies were already in there right now looking back at him, waiting to attack. Or maybe they had come searching for their friends
and found their bodies instead and were now returning to report in to Buck.
“They’re coming,” Jonah said next to him. “Tomorrow, the day after, or the week after. But they’re coming. Maybe I could have talked my way out of it before today, but not after you killed five of their people.”
“In my defense, I only killed three,” Keo said. “Sherry took out the other two.”
“You say po-tay-to, I say po-tah-to.”
“What are you going to do when they do show up? I doubt they’ll be in a talking mood.”
“I have no idea. Try to talk my way out of it anyway, I guess.”
“You good at that? Talking your way out of trouble?”
Jonah shrugged. “I used to be, but I’m a little out of practice.”
“They’re gonna want answers.”
“That’s the best-case scenario.”
“What’s the worst case?”
“They don’t even give me the chance to lie to their faces,” Jonah said.
Keo chuckled. He decided that he liked Short Stuff, even if the man was right and they were, probably, all doomed when the Buckies eventually showed up.
It’s a good thing I won’t be here tomorrow, Keo thought, but decided to keep that part to himself.
TWENTY-ONE
JONAH STAYED in one of the houses near the middle of the six buildings, flanked by three on one side and two on the other. He shared it with five others, all of whom were currently outside patrolling the grounds at the moment.
“I spent the first seven months here by myself, trying to finish up this house,” Jonah said. “It took forever. Then the others showed up. After that, it only took a month, if that.”
“Why this one?” Keo asked.
Jonah shrugged. “It was the least finished. I guess it was symbolic; me finishing it, starting over.”
“Where’d you get the parts?”
“Everything we needed was in piles outside, just sitting there waiting for someone to punch in a time card and finish the construction. Turns out that was me. Never in a million years did I think I’d be spending my time hammering in nails and liking it. I guess you end up doing a lot of things you never planned on these days.”
Ain’t that the truth, brother, Keo thought as he leaned against the deck railing and looked across the pitch-dark field at the solid black wall of woods on the other side.