His Name Was Zach | Book 3 | Their Names Were Many

by Martuneac, Peter

  No response came for several seconds as the men appeared to talk amongst themselves. The boat drifted closer, keeping nerves on edge but so far no one seemed inclined to initiate violence.

  “US military? Just you guys?” a man on the boat yelled.

  “Not just us, the whole rest of the country is right behind us,” Jax replied.

  The men on the boat seemed to confer again. “We need to talk! We’re gonna come closer, so don’t shoot!” one man shouted.

  “You keep your guns down, and we will too!”

  A tense minute passed by as the boat slowly moved downriver, approaching Abby and the others. The mutual desire to avoid bloodshed and a thin veneer of trust were the only things keeping violence at bay. Even Abby appeared nervous as she continually tightened then relaxed her grip on her rifle.

  No one spoke a word until the men on the boat came close enough to speak without shouting. “What do you mean the rest of the country is right behind you? What’s happening?”

  “We’re scouts,” Jax replied. “And more of us are converging on this spot. We thought Chicago was abandoned and were gonna look around before the rest of the military gets here.”

  “So what are you sayin’? You tellin’ us that the government or whoever is back? America is back?”

  “That’s our objective, yes.”

  The men on the boat exchanged nervous glances before the man who’d been speaking for them so far turned back to Jax. “Our leader’s gonna want to hear about this.”

  “You know he won’t believe us,” one of the other men interrupted.

  “I know,” the first man replied.

  “How ‘bout me and my boys here come meet your leader ourselves, and I can explain things to him?” Jax offered.

  “Can’t take all of you. Our boat’s not big enough.”

  “How about eleven of us then? Just my squad?”

  “Fine. Come on, then.”

  Jax turned to Sergeant Wilson and said, “You and your guys wait for the others, let them know what happened. Wait for word from me before you do anything, and tell your radio operator we’ll be on channel three.”

  “Yeah, roger that,” the sergeant replied, casting a wary glance at the armed strangers. “Be careful.”

  “We’ll be fine, we’re just gonna talk,” Jax said. He turned to his squad and motioned for them to follow him as he made his way to the water’s edge. The men on the boat tossed a rope over the side, allowing the Marines to pull themselves aboard that way.

  Jax clambered onto the boat first, leading by example. Once he was safely on board, he helped the rest of his squad climb up. With all eleven of them, the boat was filled to capacity, and one hardly had room to breathe. But this was just as well, for the limited space made it impossible to even make a threatening gesture.

  One of the men on the boat got them turned around and started them going back up the canal. “Shouldn’t be long,” he said to no one in particular.

  Abby twisted her body to take a look at Reese. He was a good horse, and she hoped this wasn’t the last time she’d ever see him. She didn’t have a particularly bad feeling about their current situation, but she felt something in her stomach that unsettled her.

  After a few minutes of silence, Abby looked towards one of the men and said, “So you guys have a little community out here?”

  The man shot her a bored look and said, “Little? Oh, no. No, we’ve basically got all Chicago up and running again.”

  Abby, and all the others, seemed surprised by this. “Really? The whole city?”

  “And then some. ‘Bout a year and a half ago we got electricity going through most of the city, followed by running water. Things kinda exploded from there. We’re not the only ones either, we do some trading with other places.”

  “Is that what your boat here is for?”

  “No, we’re a patrol boat. This is actually the first time we’ve encountered anyone out here.”

  Abby nodded her head. “So you guys have been here for a while then?”

  “Look lady, I really hate small talk. Why don’t you just save your questions for the boss, yeah?”

  “Alrighty then.”

  With the conversation so abruptly over, Abby took the opportunity to turn around and watch the shoreline pass by. They began to pass landmarks and buildings that Abby recognized from years ago, back when she was just another kid growing up in Chicago. Less than ten years had passed, and Abby was still just a young adult, barely into her twenties.

  All the same, it felt like several lifetimes had passed. Abby tried to imagine herself as a twelve year old again, walking home from the bus stop after a school day. She tried to imagine herself once again gardening with Mr. Marino down the street, or playing basketball with the Silvers’ young boy, but it was like watching a movie of somebody else. After all she’d been through, after all the changes, Abby felt utterly disconnected from her younger self. Like she was a wholly different consciousness.

  She even felt that way about herself from just a few years ago, when she lived in Utah. What a mess that was, Abby thought. On the one hand she loved those early memories of meeting and then dating Hiamovi. But on the other she had to contend with the shame of the terrible things she did there. Funny how despite being stronger and tougher physically than she’d ever been before or since, she was never lower or weaker than when she was undercover.

  Abby half expected to see that shadowy demon pop up somewhere on the shore, but she hadn’t seen her specter in a while, not since they left the prison, not since she’d beaten Abby. A sigh escaped her lips, and Hiamovi turned towards her.

  “You okay?” he asked in a hushed voice.

  Abby flashed a smile and said, “Yeah, I’m good.”

  He returned the gesture, then took Abby’s hand in his, giving it a gentle squeeze. He loved that smile, the way it creased her face and made her gorgeous eyes sparkle like silver coins in the sunlight. What he did in a past life to deserve the love of such an amazing woman, Hiamovi couldn’t imagine. He hoped she’d choose to continue with them past Chicago so they wouldn’t have to be apart, but he’d support whatever decision she made.

  After a while, one of the men pulled out a black, handheld radio and spoke into it, breaking the silence that had settled on the boat. “Hey this is the southern boat patrol. Tell the boss we’ve got some folks we think he’s gonna want to talk to.”

  “Yeah, who’s that?” came the reply.

  “They, uh…they say they’re from the government, and that they’re reclaiming the Wild.”

  There was a long silence before a voice crackled through the radio again. “Wow. Okay, we’ll let him know.”

  The conversation ceased with the radio call as the boat churned through the waters of the canal, heading deeper into the city. Before long, Abby and the others saw that the man she’d chatted with had been telling the truth about what they’d done with the city.

  People walked about on the streets, stopping occasionally to talk to each other. They could see lights inside of storefronts and houses. Children ran around grassy yards as they played their games. Several motorcycles, scooters, and even a few full-sized cars sat parked along the sidewalk or drove along the roads. And speaking of the roads, it looked like some of them were actually being repaired in spots.

  “Can you believe this?” Abby said to Hiamovi.

  “If I wasn’t seeing it with my own eyes, I probably wouldn’t,” he admitted with a shrug of his shoulders.

  “Of all the possible scenarios we could have faced here, this is something I didn’t expect at all.”

  “Same. I mean, look. Look right there, that’s traffic.”

  “I know. And look, there’s kids here too. “

  “Not exactly the wasteland of raiders and zombies you left, is it?”

  Abby shook her head, tossing her ponytail from side to side.

  The man driving the boat fiddled with some of the controls, and the boat began to slow down. Abby felt th
e reduction in speed and looked ahead. They were approaching a small cluster of what looked like warehouses. A flatbed truck laden with boxes departed from one such warehouse and turned north, and along the shore line stood four men armed with rifles.

  The barge slowly came to a halt on the canal, and one of the men jumped to the dock with a rope in hand, securing the boat in place.

  “You fellas can hop on down,” he said to the Raiders.

  Jax again took the lead and clambered over the side of the boat first, stepping onto the wooden dock and gesturing for his men to follow.

  They did, and once everyone had disembarked from the boat that armed group of men approached. “So you’re the guys, huh?” one of the men asked.

  “Yes. I’m to assume you’re in charge around here?” Jax asked.

  The man shook his head. “Nope. Come with us and we’ll take you to him, though.”

  Still armed themselves, the Raiders were willing to be a little more trusting of these people than they had back when they first noticed the boat. If they were going to be ambushed, it probably would have happened already, anyway. Without another word, they followed the men into a nearby warehouse and towards a large office room.

  “The boss is in here,” one of the men said as he seized the door handle. “For your own sakes, be on your best behavior.”

  The man twisted the doorknob and pushed the door open, stepping back so that the others could walk through.

  There, behind an old, plain desk sat a man who looked to be near his forties. His mostly shaved head was adorned only by a short black mohawk, and his sleeveless arms were covered in tattoos. The cigar in his mouth glowed as he puffed on it, but he set this aside and stood up now, revealing an old, leather holster that held a cowboy-style revolver.

  Abby thought he looked familiar, but when he spoke his thick Irish accent removed all doubt as to who he was, and a quiet gasp escaped her lips.

  “Welcome to Chi-city, motherfuckers!” the man declared, the word ‘fucker’ sounding like ‘fooker’. His voice was cheery and a smile creased his face, but his words didn’t seem to fit the happy attitude, creating a dissonant, discordant aura around himself. “My name is Edmund, and I’m a little fuckin’ pissed at ya.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Blood running from an open throat.

  That’s the first thing Abby saw in her mind after recognizing Edmund. She recalled watching him slit her friend Dianna’s throat open while she was his prisoner and chuckling as she died. The next thing to run through her mind was her bizarre conversation with him later that night, which had left Abby certain that the man was deranged. She had not known him for long, but it was enough to leave a lifelong impact on her.

  Now, all these years later, she was back in the same room with the man. Her hopes for a peaceful talk with these people were dashed, and her mind scrambled to figure out a plan of action. Edmund was not a man you reasoned with, and angering him never ended well.

  “Well, sir, we’re not here to take anything from you,” said Jax, hoping to ease any of Edmund’s concerns. “We’re just here to help folks who need it, and to let them know that America is coming back.”

  “I don’t give a fuck,” said Edmund. “I don’t need shite from you, your fuckin’ government, or anyone. You’ve already seen my city, we’re doing fine.”

  Abby tensed up, taking a step behind Hiamovi. Seeing Edmund and hearing his thinly veiled hostility again had turned her back into a scared little girl. She knew that every moment with Edmund was a moment when he could lose his temper and kill somebody.

  “Yes, it’s impressive what you’ve built here,” said Jax. “I’m sure our leaders will want to thank you for what you’ve done.”

  “Uh-huh, well here’s the thing. I don’t think I like you. And I really don’t like you fuckin’ patronizing me. What you’re really telling me is your fuckin’ government is gonna try to take what’s mine! And that makes you, my good sir, a fuckin’ liar. You want to know what I do to fuckin’ liars?”

  Click.

  Abby heard somewhere the soft sound of a rifle’s safety being disengaged. This seemed to snap her out of the shock of running into Edmund again after so many years. Her relapse into a frightened child vanished just as quickly as it had come, and the new Abby returned. This Abby was brave and decisive, and she stepped forward before any violence unfolded.

  “Hello Edmund,” she said.

  Edmund turned to Abby with anger in his eyes. “Hello your fuckin’ self, you little—“

  A light of recognition dawned in his eyes. The anger there dissipated like the fog of breath on a cold winter morning as his face once again took on a friendly smile, though this one actually seemed to be genuine. “Holy Jesus and Mary. Is that you, Abby?”

  Abby gave her best fake smile, forcing her nerves to calm themselves. “The one and only.”

  “Abby!” Edmund laughed. He stepped up to Abby and wrapped his arms around her in a bear hug, a gesture Abby felt compelled to return if she wanted to survive this encounter. “I can’t believe it’s really fuckin’ you! What’s it been, ten years?”

  “Seven, I think.”

  “My God, seven years. Let me look at ya, lass!”

  Edmund held Abby at arm’s length, his hands on her shoulders, looking her up and down like a proud father. “Sweet Jesus, you’ve grown! What a gorgeous woman you are! Bet you have to beat the boys away with a fuckin’ stick, aye?”

  His hands slid down to her arms, feeling her muscles there. “And holy hell, you’re buff as fuck! Do you fuckin’ live in a gym?”

  “A girl’s gotta be in shape if she wants to survive out here,” Abby said, chuckling along with Edmund.

  “In shape? You look like you could beat the shite out of half my guys! Lazy fucks, most of them. But good help is hard to come by out here. My God, I just can’t believe it’s really you! Hey, where’s Zach? Is that son of a bitch here too? Zach! Zach Davidson! Show your fuckin’ face, my friend!”

  Edmund looked around like he expected Zach to stroll right through the door at any moment, but his smile died when he looked back to Abby.

  “No, he’s not here,” Abby said. “He’s, uh…he’s dead.”

  “Dead? How?”

  “Zombies got him.”

  “Oh Christ,” Edmund muttered. He put a hand to his forehead as a look of sincere grief spread across his face. “I’m so sorry, lass. I truly am. Your dad was a great man, and I was honored just to have met him.”

  “Thanks, Edmund. But it’s okay, it was seven years ago, I’ve had time to deal with the grief.”

  “Seven years? Wait, don’t tell me it was the same night you and I met.”

  Abby frowned. “It was, actually.”

  “Oh fuck. Fuck!” Edmund cried, the sudden spike in volume startling the other occupants of the room. He began pacing back and forth, clutching his head in both hands as he continued to mutter and curse.

  Finally he stopped and turned to Abby, who was shocked to see tears rolling down Edmund’s cheeks. “My dear Abby,” he said, his voice breaking, “it’s my fault. I’m so fuckin’ sorry. I freed the zombies that night. I was going to frame Henry, claim that I killed him too late, and take over the gang with my Lost Boys.”

  “That was you?”

  “I swear to God and on me mum’s grave, I truly believed you two would escape! That’s why I freed you in the first place! I…felt it in my heart and soul. I swear I’d have thrown myself to the fuckin’ zombies if I’d known Zach would die! That’s the last thing I wanted, I swear it three times!”

  Edmund dropped to his knees in front of Abby and took her hands in his. “I know I don’t deserve it, but I’m beggin’ you to forgive me for getting your dad killed. I respected the hell out of him, and knowing now I had a hand in his death, I just…fuck! I’m so sorry!”

  Abby cast a quick glance over to Hiamovi, who looked to be just as perplexed by this conversation as she was. Looking back to Edmund, she said, “I
t’s fine, Edmund. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. I forgive you.”

  “Oh, thank you. Thank you,” Edmund said, blowing out a sigh of relief. He stood up and hugged Abby again before stepping back from her. He looked around, seeming to remember that he and Abby were not the sole occupants of the room. “But what are you doing here with these fucks?”

  “Well, Jax already told you what we’re doing here, and they’re my friends, you know. We’ve been through a lot together.” Abby replied, hoping to emphasize the fact that she cared for the men around her. She hoped that Edmund would see any friend of hers as a friend of his, though she didn’t mention the deeper relationship she had with Hiamovi.

  “Oh yeah, of course. I meant the good kind of ‘fucks’,” Edmund insisted, waving his hand absently. “You’re all lucky, I think I was about to lose my fuckin’ mind for a second there! But if Abby’s your friend, so is Edmund. Welcome to my city, make yourselves at home!”

  “Thank you, sir,” said Jax, “but we don’t intend on staying long. In fact, we should probably be leaving soon.”

  “Bullshit. You’re my guests and if you’ve come all this way then you could use some refreshments, eh? Besides, Abby’s not going anywhere until we’ve had a long talk. Got a lot of catching up to do, don’t we?”

  Abby looked to Hiamovi and saw the concern written in his face. She gave him a disarming, confident smile to calm him and said, “We sure do, Edmund.”

  “Can I at least contact my friends and let them know we’ll be here for a while?” Jax asked.

  “Yeah, yeah, whatever. Call whoever the fuck you want,” Edmund said hurriedly. “Come on, everyone outside.”

  The Raiders turned and began to file through the door, but Abby grabbed Edmund’s arm. “My friends are safe here, right? No one’s gonna hurt them?”

  “Yeah! No, no one’s gonna hurt them, trust me,” Edmund replied. “Things are different now, just you wait ‘till you’ve heard my story. But yes, your friends are safe, and I’ll personally make sure they’re happy.”

  They followed the Raiders outside then, where Todd was busy setting up his radio to call the Rangers back by the river.