Chapter Fifteen
The Missouri River flowed under the bridge, just as it’d done for nearly a century, and for millennia before the bridge there had been built. The rise of the undead had changed much about the world, but it could never change the Earth itself. Trees grew, winds blew, and rivers ran, and they always would.
Such thoughts passed through Abby’s mind as she and the Raiders made their way across the old interstate bridge over the Missouri River. The automobile factory was a few days behind them by now, and spirits had risen a bit. Nate would be mourned for a long time, along with Kurtis, but Vic had made it back to a major hospital in time and he was pulling through, according to the radio chatter Todd picked up at night.
But Abby banished these inner reflections as she resumed scanning from right to left. Returning to the present situation, her ears perked up as she tuned into the conversation behind her.
“Don’t get me wrong, I love you guys,” said Chad. “But I’ve had just about enough of this goddamn sausage fest. I’m ready to get back to the civilian world and spend quality time with some pretty girls again.”
Abby turned around in her saddle and looked at Chad with mock sternness. “You forget about me already? Or are you saying I’m not pretty?”
Chad gestured towards Abby and said, “Present company excluded, of course. You’re not my type anyway.”
“Oh yeah? What type is that?”
“The type that falls in love. I don’t need that bullshit.”
“A girl in every port, huh?”
“Two or three, if I can help it.”
Abby shook her head and said, “That sounds awful, no offense. Or at least it’s not a lifestyle I would ever want. I mean, in the grand scheme of things, what’s the point of that much meaningless sex?”
“To have a good time!” Chad answered. “You should know just as well as the rest of us that life is short. One day I’m gonna die, and that day may come much sooner than I’d prefer. So I’m here to have a damn good time before that happens.”
“Boy, you sure fucked up when you enlisted then,” Chris joked.
Quiet laughter spread throughout the group at that. “Hey, as shitty as this gets sometimes,” Chad said, spreading his arms wide, “I’m still getting paid to shoot guns and blow shit up with my boys. Sounds like a good time to me. Besides, chicks dig Marines. I mean, look at ‘Movi. Uglier than sin itself, but he still managed to bag himself a fine-ass woman like Abs.”
Hiamovi heard this and laughed. “Hey, we were involved way before I joined up.”
“Well you also have a stunning personality,” Chad replied.
Abby laughed now and said, “I will say, y’all’s dress blues are pretty amazing. Can take a five straight to a nine.”
“So that’d make me a fourteen out of ten, wouldn’t you say?” Chad asked.
Abby shook her head, gestured towards Hiamovi, and said, “He’s the only fourteen I know.”
Chad faked a dry heave. “Ugh, fuckin’ warn me before you turn on the mush next time.”
“What do you mean?” Hiamovi asked. And though he was still talking to Chad, he turned to face Abby and said, “You want a heads up next time I tell Abby that her eyes are like…a calm, silvery sea in which I drown with love every time she looks at me?”
“That’s it, I’m out. Pop smoke, bitches,” Chad said, and he nudged his horse into a trot, taking him up to the front with Jax.
Meanwhile, Abby and Hiamovi just smiled at each other, both of them somewhat impressed by Hiamovi’s romantic flash of poetry. Abby might have attempted to return the favor had the entire patrol not come to a sudden stop halfway across the bridge. Looking ahead, she saw Jax had his arm up, making a fist at head level, the sign to halt immediately.
Jax whispered something to Todd, who then whispered to Yuri. The whisper was passed from man to man all the way back to Abby. “Jax wants you,” was the message relayed to her.
Abby gently squeezed Reese with her legs, signaling him to walk forward. “What’s up?” she asked Jax in a hushed tone.
“You remember any folks in this area?” Jax asked, pointing ahead to the opposite shoreline.
Abby looked where Jax was pointing and saw it immediately: about a hundred yards from the end of the bridge, a log wall enclosed a small area with a few buildings.
“No, this is new to me,” Abby replied.
Jax grunted in reply. He signaled for the rest of the group to assemble around him and said, “I’m gonna call out to them. Everyone keep your guns alert to the dirt. I don’t wanna scare these folks but we can’t be caught with our trousers down.”
Everyone nodded in agreement as Jax cupped his hands around his mouth. “Good morning!” he yelled, his booming voice cascading over the river and drifting far into the clearing on the other side. “You folks over there! We’re United States Marines, we’re here to help!”
No response came for several seconds, the silence broken only by the occasional huff from the horses and the babbling river below them. Jax and Abby shared a look, then Jax yelled again. “We’re gonna cross the bridge! Do NOT shoot! We’re here to help! Do NOT shoot!”
Jax clicked his tongue, urging his horse forward as the others followed his lead. Heads swiveled right, left, and behind as everyone anticipated an ambush at any moment. But they made it across the bridge without incident and fanned out so that they were not all bunched together.
The group was close to the log wall now, and they saw that it did not encompass a very large area. A church steeple rose above the log wall at the far end, which might have been a hopeful sign before a few days ago. But after finding Isaiah, and witnessing the atrocities he committed, the sight of a cross only heightened the group’s tension.
Signaling for the group to stop, Jax called out again to whoever may have occupied this area. “If anyone is in there, you ought to know that we’re just a scouting party. The entire US military is a couple days behind us, taking back the Wild. Civilization is returning. If you allow us in, we can tell you more.”
Silence continued unbroken for almost half a minute. Jax nearly gave the command to keep moving when a person finally appeared above the wall.
“You said you’re Marines?” a woman’s voice called.
“Yes, ma’am!” Jax replied.
“Who was the ‘grand old man’ of the Marine Corps?”
“Is she serious?” Chad muttered, but Jax hushed him.
“Archibald Henderson!” Jax bellowed in reply.
A short pause followed, then the woman’s voice yelled again. “What’s your third general order?”
Jax sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose with his right hand. His lips moved wordlessly as his left hand counted off one, two, and then three fingers. “To report all violations of orders I am instructed to enforce!” he replied after a moment’s hesitation.
Todd snickered. “Damn, Gunny. Did you ever think that big green book of rules and regs would save our lives one day?”
“Everyone shut the fuck up,” Jax hissed.
“And your twelfth?” the woman’s voice said.
“There is no twelfth!” Jax replied. “Satisfied? Or do you want the fourteen leadership traits? I can do a mean rendition of the Marine Corps hymn!”
“Alright, come on in but keep those guns down!”
Jax turned to look at his group and nodded once. As one, they dismounted and led their horses forward, complying with the order to keep their guns down but leaving the distrusting glances on their faces. They’d seen enough of the Wild by now to know that nothing was ever as it seemed, and that even friendly folks could be dangerous.
As they approached the log wall, they saw that the short end facing the road had a door. This was pulled open and a woman and man stepped out, both holding rifles pointed down. Jax signaled for the group to halt.
“Sorry for the quiz, but I had to be sure you weren’t lying,” the woman said as she relaxed the grip on her weapon.
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�You were a Marine, then?” Jax asked.
The woman nodded her head, running a hand through her long, blond hair. “All the men in my family going back to my great-grandfather served in the Marines. Then my dad wound up with only one child: me. Didn’t see much of a choice. I’m April, and this is my husband Stephen.”
Jax introduced himself and the rest of the group, pointing to each of his men in turn. “And last but not least, Abby.”
“Howdy,” Abby said.
“Hi. Good to see another female Marine,” April said.
Abby gave a rueful grin and replied, “Well, I’m not actually a Marine. I’m more of a tag-along. Someone’s gotta keep these boys out of trouble.”
April nodded her head. “Well, if you’re attached to these guys you must be somethin’ special.”
Stephen spoke up for the first time then. “How ‘bout we all head inside now?”
He and April turned and proceeded through the open door behind them, followed by the group of Raiders. Everyone looked a little more relaxed after their short conversation, except for Abby. She’d been fooled by a friendly face and kind words before, so she kept her guard up as she passed through the narrow passageway.
A small crowd of people awaited them, a few dozen adults or so, all standing in the center of the closed-off area. If any children lived here, they were hiding somewhere because Abby didn’t see anyone who looked younger than her. She scanned the gathering from right to left, observing faces and hands, looking for any threatening gestures or weapons. But none of them at least appeared to be trouble. They all looked like a pretty normal group of people, except she noted that a few of the men wore kippahs on their heads.
And that suddenly made sense as Abby glanced to her right and noticed that the first building nearest the door was a Jewish tabernacle, not even one hundred feet from the church that could be seen from the road. An interesting place, she thought, with two very different places of worship so close to each other. She wondered what this place would have been like before The Crisis.
“It’s okay, everyone. They’re legit,” April said to the group of people, interrupting Abby’s wandering train of thought. The crowd visibly relaxed as breaths were released and shoulders heaved in relief. Then, practically on command, the entire group surged towards Abby and the others, questions pouring from their mouths and mingling together into one gigantic noise.
“You said the military is behind you?”
“Two days? Just two days?”
“Can we go meet them?”
“What’s changed? Will we be safe?”
Jax raised his hands in an attempt to bring some order to the situation, but April spoke up first. “Quiet!” she yelled to be heard above the racket. “Now we’ve all got questions, so we’re going to do this like rational, civilized people. One at a time.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” Jax said to April. He then turned to his group and said, “I’ll handle the questions, the rest of you can give yourselves and the horses a break.”
Abby and the others all nodded and voiced some verbal response to Jax’s command, with ‘yut’ and ‘urrah’ being the most popular choices.
“Is it alright if we let the horses graze?” Abby asked Stephen.
“Uh, sure,” he responded, rubbing the back of his neck. “Don’t see not why. I mean, don’t see why not.”
Hiamovi caught Stephen’s verbal flub and turned a concerned look onto him. “You alright?”
“Yeah, fine,” Stephen replied, shaking his head. “I just…is it really over? Like, everything is going back to normal in just a couple days? Just like that?”
Abby smiled and nodded her head. “It really is over, yes. The rest of the military will be up here soon enough, and they’re bringing a lot of civilians with them too. Things got dangerously overcrowded out west, so we’re trying to get people and materials back out to the rest of the country.”
Stephen chuckled and shook his head again. “Wow. You know, we’ve been out here so long we just kinda gave up on things ever going back to normal. Hell, just yesterday we started rethinking our population policy.”
Abby frowned. “Population policy? What kind of policy is that?”
“Well, not too long after The Crisis, when we realized the government really did leave us out here and that it wouldn’t be back anytime soon, four couples all got pregnant within a week. Not knowing how long this would go on or how reliable food would be, we all decided that we couldn’t allow any more mouths to feed. Those four babies we got were the last we allowed.”
“So that was the rule? No more babies?”
“No babies, couldn’t even have sex if there was any chance of pregnancy. Now I’m sure some folks broke that rule a time or two, but I guess it all worked out in the end.”
“Well good for you guys,” Chad said as he and a few of the others followed their horses around. “Bet a lot of y’all are gonna celebrate like rabbits tonight.”
Stephen blushed as a goofy grin ate up half his face. “Yeah, maybe. I think a lot of folks are thinking exactly that.”
“Any of them single ladies over the age of eighteen?” Chad asked. The rest of his squad shot him a glance, but he just shrugged and said, “Can’t blame a guy for asking.”
Abby was worried that Stephen would take offense to Chad’s inquiry, but looking at him she wasn’t sure if he even heard it. He was looking over towards the group of people around Jax, at April specifically. She met his gaze and smiled back, and though Abby couldn’t be sure from this distance, she was certain that tears were rolling down her cheeks.
That’s what was happening to Stephen, at least. Turning back to the group around him, he dried his eyes with his sleeve and said, “Ah, I’m sorry. It’s just overwhelming. Y’all have no idea what it’s been like out here. No idea. We’ve lost folks to the cold, to hunger. Hell, even a case of diarrhea killed someone a couple years back. It’s like we were ripped out of our time and dropped into a place set six hundred years ago.”
Abby gave him a knowing smile but didn’t say anything. Now wasn’t the time for her story, it was time for Stephen to tell his.
“And the zombies, man. I just…there’s just no describing those things.”
“We’ve run into a couple,” Hiamovi said. “I figure it’s a lot like how a mouse feels when it runs into a snake.”
Stephen nodded his head. “Well, enough of that. Doesn’t matter anymore, right? I mean, it’s over.” He chuckled and shook his head, repeating those last two words in a tone barely above a whisper.
Jax rejoined the group just then to talk to his squad. “Get cozy, boys. We’re staying here for the rest of the day and night.”
Abby smiled at this. For one, she liked that Jax now referred to all of them simply as ‘boys’, and no longer ‘boys…and girl’; she was one of them now, and her gender didn’t matter to Jax one bit. Second, she was glad to spend the night in a safe place for the first time in weeks.
And you,” Jax continued, jabbing a finger at Chad. “Don’t even think about it. I don’t want to offend our gracious hosts here.”
“What? Don’t think about what?” Chad replied.
“You know damn well what. So I better not catch you mingling with any of the young ladies here.”
“I don’t even know what you’re talking about, Gunny. Scout’s honor.”
Jax shook his head and turned to Abby. “Make sure the only thinking he does here is with his brain, will ya?”
“Can do,” Abby replied with a chuckle.
“Joke’s on you guys, I never think if I can help it,” Chad quipped as he led his horse to a new patch of grass.
Chapter Sixteen
Another sunrise.
Abby blinked twice as she slowly woke to the start of a new day. It had to have been over a thousand sunrises now since that day she nearly flung herself off a building. But it was far too early to be doing math, so Abby stretched and yawned as she sat up and glanced around at her surroundings.
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She and the others had been permitted to sleep inside the church that night, and though April guaranteed their safety Jax insisted on continuing to post one person from his squad on watch every hour. He told the locals that he insisted the squad ‘do their share’ of the work, but Abby knew it was an act of caution. The people here had proven trustworthy so far, but Jax was taking no chances.
The night had been long as some of the locals wanted to leave immediately, head west, and link up with the military that way. Jax did everything he could to dissuade them from this course of action as it was still dangerous out there. April shared his sentiment, and the restless few grumbled but agreed to stay for just a couple days longer.
Abby yawned again. She and Hiamovi had stayed up much later than they should have, just talking and enjoying each other’s company now that they felt a little safer behind those log walls. Privacy was something they got far too little of out in the Wild, and so they took full advantage of their present lodgings.
And yet Abby was the first to awaken, it seemed. She quietly pulled on her pants and shirt, then tip-toed towards the door with her boots in hand. Once at the door she put her boots on and laced them up, then eased the door open and slipped outside.
“Morning, Yuri,” she whispered. Yuri sat on a bench along the outside of the church, facing the East and staring at the sun as it peeped over the horizon. But he did not answer.
“Yuri?” Abby said again as she sat on the bench.
“Oh,” Yuri said, starting as if he hadn’t heard Abby the first time. “Hi, Abby. Sorry.”
“You’re good,” Abby replied. “Looks like we had nothing to fear from our hosts after all, huh?”
“Guess not.”
Abby hesitated before speaking again. She recognized that look on Yuri’s face. They all were still struggling with the loss of Nate, of course, but especially Yuri. It was never easy losing someone to the disease, something Abby knew all too well, perhaps more than anyone else in the group.
“I lost my dad to those creatures,” Abby finally said. “I was just a kid, and one of ‘em had me pinned down. My dad killed it, but the time he spent saving me gave another one of those things the chance to bite him. Luckily for me it took a while before the virus began to take him, so I had a few minutes more with him before…before he died.”
His Name Was Zach | Book 3 | Their Names Were Many Page 13