by Gillian Zane
“Keep this in mind if you have a gun pointed at you- they have that arm stuck out in your face, and all it takes-” I made a quick motion with my hand to demonstrate a disarming technique.
“Pair off. I want one to practice with the tight attack and the other to try and disarm.” I clapped my hands and they obediently paired up. I dispensed a cup of water from the cooler and chugged it back, surveying my group. They were doing well. I was surprised with some of them, Lani in particular and the female that had come out of Lakeview with Alexis, Melinda. Doc had wanted her in the infirmary with him, since she was a trained nurse, but she was intent on helping us take down Lakeview, which I respected.
They were the only girls in my training group. The rest of the gang was comprised of the men that had come with Blake Miller, from Houston and had only been a part of our compound for a few months. Liam, Bret, Ray and Orlando were all competent fighters but still a bit green. I also had some of our original survivors in my group. They weren't former employees, but have been with our group since right after Z hit, Justin Crisp, Jimmy Camp and Duke Nunez were all competent fighters, now. I saw Alexis had paired up with Duke, which I was grateful for, he wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed and he was a misogynist so I wanted to see her put him on his ass a few times. Duke was good to have in a fight because he was big and rather strong, but his crude humor and inappropriate behaviors grated on my nerves. Plus, he was cocky, the kind of cocky only dumb people can achieve. My stupidity tolerance was low.
The door of the warehouse slammed opened and Blake Miller walked through them. Blake had recently shaved off all his pretty hair since hygiene had taken a bit of a downturn lately. We were working on formulating the perfect soap recipe, but right now we had to rely on goods that were scavenged. We still had plenty of soaps and shampoos, but our supplies were finite. Long hair was a vanity in a world that didn’t do well with material needs. Most of the women that kept their hair long only did so because they could tie it up or pull it back in a ponytail for easy care. It would take a bit more “end of the worldness” to set in before us females were shaving our heads. The men were comfortable with that look, not the women. Give me a few months without shampoo and maybe a lice infestation, and I might give the high and tight look a try. I shivered thinking about it, I liked my locks.
Blake was a tall man, so of course, I had to look up to him when he stood next to me. He had been one of my bosses before Z hit and now he had taken a leadership role at our compound. We called it S-Island for Survivor Island, and Blake Miller, his partner Zach James and Alexis were kind of the de facto ruling class. Not by any right or vote, just because it’s how it happened. Blake and Zach because they owned the island our compound was located on and had supplied us with the weapons, food and shelter that we used, and Alexis–well, because she was their girlfriend. Both, yeah, she was a more tolerant girl than me.
I had only worked for Zach and Blake for a short while before the world ended, but they made good decisions and I trusted them. In the middle of the shit, that was worth more than gold. And Alexis was a natural leader and she kept the boys’ heads on straight. Plus, she listened to me. I would follow all three of them to Hell and back. I had no problem with their leadership.
“We’re going to scavenge Trivox tomorrow and then leave for Lakeview the following day,” Blake said after a quick greeting. “I want your final say on who stays and goes from this group by this afternoon. And I’m serious, Hannah, if you don’t think one of them could survive a one-on-one with one of those Lakeview pervs, they stay back. I don’t want to lose anyone.” I nodded and looked over to the group. The only two I could honestly say would be an asset in this fight was Alexis and Duke, which grated, I wasn’t a fan of Duke. Duke Nuñez was a civilian and hadn’t integrated well with the rest of the team. He was lewd, lacking in hygiene and thought the way to a girl’s heart was by being a total stalker. He was strong though, and knew his way around a weapon. He might not be my favorite, but he would be handy in a fight.
The rest of the team I was giving about an eighty percent chance of survival, Justin and Lani were my bottom two. Justin wasn’t aggressive and had a tendency to panic, Lani was still weak from her ordeal. She hadn’t eaten properly in six months and was so young. I told Blake my thoughts and he nodded.
“Both of them will fight me if I try to get them to sit out,” I sighed. “Lani wants payback, Justin wants to prove that he’s worth a damn. I don’t think they’ll be an issue, but I don’t want to see them go inside,” I said quietly so I wouldn’t be overheard.
“You’re right. We’ll keep them off the frontline. They’ll have to be content with bringing up the rear. You did good here, Hannah, seriously, your training will save their lives.” He patted me on the back and then walked over to Alexis, who tried to ignore him as she was ordering Duke on his knees and zip-tying his hands like we had practiced.
We had this. Lakeview was going down.
FOUR | Rebel Babysitter
There was no one guarding the door. It stood cracked open to the elements and anything that might wander in. I walked into our main building without any resistance. This was a really bad sign. I yanked on the door, forcing it to slide open and walked into chaos, even though I wanted to turn and run.
The brothers were talking loudly, milling about, nothing but a sea of black leather and our colors of red, white and orange.
Junior was by his father’s office and was yelling at the top of his lungs. “You bunch of incompetent pricks!”
He was standing on the counter that ran around the glass office Senior had used for his living quarters. The counter had been the customer service area for the grocery store, but it was now a bar, or a place to do drugs. It was usually littered with ashtrays, meth and bottles of booze.
There was nothing up there now though, but Junior. It was completely clear and bottles were strewn across the floor, broken, with the smell of alcohol pungent and noxious permeating the air. He was in a real tirade.
There were no females around. Even the one they called the “house bitch” was tucked away in the back where they kept the girls. I’m sure some of the Old Ladies were hovering near the back of the room, hidden, but listening. It was their usual MO. The brothers’ wives were not allowed to mingle with the men, or speak out, or leave the base. They were kept in a different area than the property girls, but still locked up. Their only status as an old lady kept them from being traded, or from another brother requesting a night with them.
I tried to stay in the background. I didn’t want to be seen or noticed. Our group consisted of forty members and they were all gathered in this room. It would be easy to stay to the back and remain unseen.
“How did she get a knife? How did she get out?” Junior ranted from his perch. I noticed my father motion for him to lean down, and Junior squatted, allowing him to say something in his ear. My father was obviously trying to explain what had happened or make some excuse for what went down without the others hearing him.
“I knew that slut was no good!” Junior finally puffed out, like he knew, like he had seen it coming. He stood up and looked down at us from his lofty view on the counter. He was still young, my age, barely twenty-three, but he wore the road on his face, his eyes already lined with crow’s feet. His hair was a dark shock of black on tanned skin, hinting at an ethnic heritage, though he insisted it was the Cajun in him. He was tall and well-muscled, which made him strong and tough to beat in a fight. As a teen he had taken me down twice, until I got smart and started taking mixed martial arts in my spare time. He never took me down again, by himself.
“My father is dead. It looks like I’m President now, brothers,” he called down to us in his deep voice. A low murmuring went over the crowd of men and then a steady stream of clapping and a few catcalls. “My father Brandon Senior is now gone, but not forgotten, and I’m ready to lead the Southern Clan!” More catcalls and cheers.
“We’ve got a new world here, a new world wi
th no rules, with no heat breathing down our necks. We are truly free, my brothers!” His raised his arms as if preaching on a pulpit and looked down at us with a grim smile on his face.
“With Senior’s death it will be hard, but we can do this. We’ll have a new focus, a new goal. We don’t have to slink around in the shadows anymore. No more running from the law and living off the dregs of society. We were always outlaws, but now in this world, with no government, no pigs, the outlaws will rule! We make the rules now, we are in charge!” The room erupted in cheers and I clapped along, in case anyone was paying attention.
I suddenly felt sick to my stomach. Was this how it felt to be a German in the 30s? I looked around at my brothers who were all eating this shit up. They looked almost gleeful. Only a few had grim looks on their faces. I didn’t know if it was because they were mourning Senior or because of what Junior was saying.
“I’m appointing Mick as my Vice President, and Eagle as my Sergeant at Arms,” he said and there were a few gasps from the crowd. My father had been Sergeant at Arms for a long time, it was expected he would stay in his position when Junior took over.
“Shouldn’t we take a vote?” someone called. I craned my neck to see who it was, but they were staying low.
“This ain’t a democracy. My place, my rules. We doing things differently now and until things get straight, I don’t want to hear shit from y’all. You don’t like it, you can walk.” He jumped off the counter into the crowd and restless murmuring went over the group of bikers, glee turned quickly into doubt. We usually had a vote, there was always a vote. The president had the final say, but he listened to his brothers. Junior had other things in mind though.
“Bayou, get Senior’s body out of here, we’re gonna have to give him an old school Viking send-off tonight, and get one of the old ladies to clean out his room,” he said to one of the brothers standing near him. Bayou had been licking Junior’s boots for years. He hurried off like a typical lackey.
“We gonna have one hell of party tonight, brothers, send the old bastard off with a bang,” he finished and turned around, motioning for Eagle to follow him and they went into Junior’s living area.
I had a really bad feeling about how things were going to change under Junior’s leadership.
I could understand Senior’s motivations as a leader. They were always centered on self-gratification. He was an addict, I could understand addicts. I couldn’t trust them, but I knew what his motivations were. Junior was motivated by something entirely different and I didn’t understand it. He was a mean bastard and a lot of his decisions were made from cruelty. He was also greedy and power hungry so there was no telling what he could do to the club. Sometimes power could motivate a person to act for the good of the group, a solid foundation gave a person more power, so building up the group would benefit a leader.
Junior was smart, which was a scary combination with his other traits. His smarts might also help him keep our group together. If he kept his head straight he could get us pointed in the right direction. Again logic and misguided hope was giving me another reason to stick around. Maybe Junior would turn things around.
I knew the hope stemmed from the fact that I didn’t want to be on my own. I didn’t want to leave and face this world as a lone wolf. My mind cooked up a million reasons Junior might be a better leader than his father. But deep down inside I knew it was time to go. Even if Junior turned the group on the right path, he still hated me. I would never feel comfortable around my brothers with him as the leader. I would never be accepted. It was either exist on the fringe, or leave.
I went to my sleeping berth. I wasn’t allowed to bunk in the main area where the weapons and the women were stored. I had lost that privilege when I refused to dish out a beating to a civilian who was caught taking more food than his daily allowance.
My berth was in the secondary living area in the former coffee shop next to the main building. They had knocked down a wall, and it was a crumbling mess of sheetrock and hanging electrical wires. They used the kitchen in the former coffee shop as the food prep area. The nasty thing about it though, was that the connecting wall was from the bathrooms in the grocery store. Between the bathrooms, now abandoned because of the lack of running water, and the smell of the old food, it was a nasty area. I didn’t know what was worse, the smell of old piss or rotted food. My sleeping area wasn’t prime real estate that was for sure.
Looking around the ten by ten area I called my personal space, it was rather pathetic. A few sheets strung up between walls and a window. I didn’t have much to my name. I had my weapons, which I was still allowed to carry as long as I had my colors on. I kept my weapons on me at all times, my .357 nestled in my belt and my .22 in my boot. I also had a machete attached to a loop that I had fashioned on my belt and I let that hang at my hip and kept it close at hand when I slept. In my berth I had a few books that I didn’t want to part with, a couple pictures of my friends from college and the MREs, Meals Ready to Eat, I had been stashing for the last couple of months. I kept those hidden under a blanket and fashioned as a side-table, as if it was a crate that I kept things on. We weren’t allowed to hoard food.
I removed the few items I kept next to my bed and pulled the blanket off of my stores and added an MRE to my growing collection.
When out on patrol each brother was given two MREs for every twenty-four hour patrol period. I had made a habit of only eating one of the MREs in that timeframe since their high calorie count could sustain me for the day. I also had been stashing canned goods I found in houses, along with other items in different areas around the neighborhood. I was required to turn in any food that I found, and in exchange I was given a “food credit” from the club. These food credits, or creds as they were called, could be cashed in at any point for extra food, females, alcohol, drugs or weapons.
For each patrol and watch I completed I was given creds, but the perk of doing the dangerous, off-base work was that you got to take food with you. This translated to a lot of food creds. I wasn’t going to pay for sex and I abstained from liquor and drugs which would inhibit me, which left weapons. I hadn’t amassed enough creds for a new piece, but I was getting there. The downside of amassing a lot of creds was that it became pretty obvious I wasn't spending them and the brothers had become suspicious. They didn’t understand why I wouldn’t take a girl or a hit.
I tried blending in better after I noticed the suspicious looks. In the last month I came up with a plan. I was using my food creds on girls, one girl in particular. I would act like part of the group, even if it went against all my principals. It was too little, too late, though. My unwillingness to indulge was obvious to the others and it painted me as an outsider.
A throat cleared behind me and I threw my blanket hastily down on top of my stores and turned quickly to face whoever was behind me.
It was Jazz, who’s probably the only brother I trusted in the club. But it wasn’t by much. Jazz was in Junior’s inner circle, a place I could have been also, if I had learned to play the game better. I was never good at politics, or keeping my mouth shut.
“Your girl was the one that escaped,” he said with no preamble.
“I thought it was Senior’s property, the Hispanic chick,” I said casually and I slipped my hands in the pockets of my jeans to hide that they were shaking from almost being caught with the food.
“Three got out. Senior’s bitch, your girl, and the other new one that came in with Senior’s property. Those three were the only ones that got out. Made a fucking mess as they were leaving too.”
“How did they kill Senior?”
“Senior’s property gutted him with his own knife. He was naked so she probably got him while he was on her. She let him bleed out and die. They took out Parrish at the door and shot and killed Fatz in the street, looked like they ran him over with a vehicle after. He was a fucking mess. I don’t know where they got the vehicle so quick, or the weapons. Junior wants to talk to you about that.”
“You made a point of claiming that skank, even though you didn’t have property rights. Junior just wants to ask you about it,” Jazz said icily.
“I haven’t been at base for the last couple days, I don’t know what he wants from me,” I said, but I followed Jazz out of my area and into the main building. You didn’t argue when the new president summoned you.