Josh goes over to the grimy front window and gazes out at the night. “I think all the activity at Camp Bingham’s been drawing ’em out of the woodwork for weeks now.”
“How far from base camp are we, ya think?”
“Not much more than a mile or so, as the crow flies.” Josh gazes out over the pinnacles of distant pines, their swaying ocean of boughs as dense as black lace. The sky has cleared, and now the heavens are spangled with a riot of icy-cold stars.
Across the needlework of constellations rise wisps of wood smoke from the tent city.
“Been thinking about something…” Josh turns and looks at his companions. “This place ain’t the Ritz but if we can do a little scavenging, maybe find some more ammunition for the guns … we might be better off staying put for a while.”
The notion hangs in the silent office for a moment, sinking in.
* * *
The next morning, after a long, restless night sleeping on the cold cement floor of the service bay—making do with threadbare blankets and taking shifts standing guard—they have a group meeting to decide what to do. Over cups of instant coffee prepared on Bob’s Coleman stove, Josh convinces them that the best thing to do is stay holed up there for the time being. Lilly can heal up, and if necessary, they can steal provisions from the nearby tent city.
By this point, nobody puts up much of a fight. Bob has discovered a stash of whiskey under a counter in the bait shop, and Megan and Scott alternate between getting high and “spending quality time” in the back room for hours on end. They work hard that first day to secure the place. Josh decides against running the generator indoors for fear of gassing them to death with the fumes, and worries about running it outdoors for fear of drawing unwanted attention. He finds a wood-burning stove in the storeroom and a pile of lumber scraps out behind one of the Dumpsters.
Their second night at Fortnoy’s Fuel and Bait, they get the temperature up to tolerable levels in the service area by keeping the stove going full blast, and Megan and Scott noisily keep each other warm in the back room under layers of blankets. Bob gets drunk enough not to notice the cold, but he seems disturbed by the muffled bumping sounds coming from the storeroom. Eventually, the older man gets so loaded he can barely move. Lilly helps him into his bedroll as though putting a child down for the night. She even sings a lullaby to him—a Joni Mitchell song, “The Circle Game”—as she tucks the mildewed blanket around his aging, wattled neck. Oddly, she feels responsible for Bob Stookey, even though he’s the one who’s supposed to be nursing her.
* * *
Over the next few days, they reinforce the doors and windows, and they wash themselves in the big galvanized sinks in the rear of the garage. They settle into a sort of grudging routine. Bob winterizes his truck, cannibalizing parts off some of the wrecks, and Josh supervises regular reconnaissance missions to the outer edges of the tent city a mile to the west. Under the campers’ noses, Josh and Scott are able to steal firewood, fresh water, a few discarded tent rolls, some canned vegetables, a box of shotgun shells, and a case of Sterno. Josh notices the fabric of civilized behavior straining at the seams in the tent city. He hears more and more arguments. He sees fistfights among some of the men, and heavy drinking going on. The stress is taking its toll on the settlers.
During the darkness of night, Josh keeps a tight lid on Fortnoy’s Fuel and Bait. He and the others stay inside, keeping as quiet as possible, burning a minimum number of emergency candles and lanterns, jumping at the intermittent noises caused by the increasing winds. Lilly Caul finds herself wondering which is the deadlier menace—the zombie hordes, her fellow human beings, or the encroaching winter. The nights are getting longer and the cold is setting in. It’s forming rimes of frost on the windows and getting into people’s joints, and although no one talks about it much, the cold is the silent menace that could actually destroy them far easier and more efficiently than any zombie attack.
In order to fight the boredom and constant undercurrents of fear, some of the inhabitants of Fortnoy’s develop hobbies. Josh begins rolling homemade cigars out of tobacco leaves that he harvests from neighboring fields. Lilly starts a diary, and Bob finds a treasure trove of old fishing lures in an unmarked trunk in the bait shop. He spends hours in the ransacked retail shop, perched at a workbench in back, compulsively winding fly-fishing lures for future use. Bob plans to bag some nice trout, redfish, or walleyes in the shallows of a nearby river. He keeps the bottle of Jack Daniel’s under the bench at all times, tippling from it day and night.
The others notice the rate at which Bob is going through the hooch, but who can blame him? Who can blame anybody for drowning his nerves in this cruel purgatory? Bob is not proud of his drinking. In fact, he’s downright ashamed of it. But that’s why he needs the medicine—to stave off the shame, and the loneliness, and the fear, and the horrible night terrors of blood-spattered bunkers in Kandahar.
On Friday of that week, in the wee hours of the night—Bob notes in his paper calendar that the date is November 9—he finds himself back at the workbench in the rear of the shop, winding flies, getting shit-faced as usual, when he hears the shuffling noises coming from the storeroom. He hadn’t noticed Megan and Scott slipping away earlier that evening, nor had he detected the telltale odors of marijuana residue cooking in a pipe, nor had he heard the muffled giggling coming through the thin walls. But now he notices something else that had eluded his attention that day.
He stops fiddling with the lures and glances across the rear corner of the room. Behind a large, battered propane tank, a gaping hole in the wall is clearly visible in the flickering light of Bob’s lantern. He pushes himself away from the bench and goes over to the tank. He shoves it aside and kneels down in front of a six-inch patch of missing wallboard. The hole looks like it was formed by water damage, or perhaps the buckling of plaster during the humid Georgia summers. Bob glances over his shoulder, making sure he’s alone. The others are fast asleep in the service area.
The groans and gasps of wild sex draw Bob’s attention back to the damaged wall.
He peers through the six-inch gap and into the storeroom, where the dim light of a battery-operated lantern throws moving shadows up and across the low ceiling. The shadows pump and thrust in the darkness. Bob licks his lips. He leans in closer to the hole, nearly falling over in his drunken state, bracing himself against the propane tank. He can see a small portion of Scott Moon’s pimpled ass rising and falling in the yellow light, Megan beneath the young man, legs spread, her toes curling with ecstasy.
Bob Stookey feels his heart pinch in his chest, his breath sticking in his craw.
The thing that mesmerizes him the most is not the naked abandon with which the two lovers are going at each other, nor is it the animalistic grunts and mewls filling the air. The thing that holds Bob Stookey rapt is the sight of Megan Lafferty’s olive skin in the lamplight, her russet curls splayed across the blanket beneath her head, her hair as lustrous and shiny as honey. Bob can’t stop gaping at her, the longing welling up inside him.
He can’t tear his gaze from her, even when a floorboard creaks behind him.
“Oh—Bob—I’m sorry—I didn’t…”
The voice comes from the shadows of the doorway across the retail shop, from the passageway into the front office, and when Bob jerks away from the hole in the wall, whirling around to face his inquisitor, he nearly falls over. He has to hold on to the propane tank. “I wasn’t trying to—this ain’t—I—I ain’t—”
“It’s okay—I was just—I wanted to make sure you were okay.” Lilly stands in the doorway dressed in her sweatshirt, knit scarf, and sweatpants—her sleeping attire—averting her bandaged face, looking away, her eyes filled with an awkward combination of pity and disgust. The bruising around her eyes has gone down quite a bit. She’s moving around a lot better, her ribs healing.
“Lilly, I wasn’t—” Bob staggers toward her, holding his big hands up in a gesture of contrition, when he trips on a loos
e floorboard. He tumbles, sprawling to the floor and letting out a gasp. Amazingly, the carnal noises continue unabated in the adjacent room—an arrhythmic cadence of huffing and slapping flesh.
“Bob, are you okay?” Lilly rushes over to him, kneels, and tries to help him up.
“I’m fine, I’m fine.” He gently pushes her away. He rises drunkenly to his feet. He can’t look her in the eye. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands. He glances across the room. “I thought I heard something suspicious coming from outside.”
“Suspicious?” Lilly gazes at the floor, at the wall—anywhere but at Bob. “Oh … okay.”
“Yeah, it was nothing.”
“Oh … that’s good.” Lilly slowly backs away. “Just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“I’m good, I’m good. It’s getting late, I’m thinking I’ll turn in.”
“Good, Bob. You do that.”
Lilly turns and makes a hasty exit, leaving Bob Stookey alone in the lantern light. He stands there for a moment, staring at the floor. Then he moves slowly across the room to the bench. He finds the bottle of Jack, thumbs off the cap, and raises it to his lips.
He downs the remaining fingers of booze in three breathless gulps.
* * *
“I’m just wondering what’s gonna happen when he runs out of booze.”
Bundled in her ski jacket and knit beret, Lilly follows Josh down a narrow path winding between columns of pines. Josh makes his way through the foliage, the 12-gauge cradled in his huge arms, moving toward a dry creek bed strewn with boulders and deadfall. He wears his ratty lumberjack coat and stocking cap, his breath showing as he talks. “He’ll find some more … don’t worry about old Bob … juicers always manage to find more juice. To be honest, I’m more worried about us running out of food.”
The woods are as silent as a chapel as they approach the banks of the creek. The first snow of the season filters down through the high boughs above them, swirling on the wind, sticking to their faces.
They’ve been at Fortnoy’s for almost two weeks now, and have gone through over half the supply of drinking water and nearly all the canned goods. Josh has decided it’s probably best to use up their single box of shotgun shells on killing a deer or a rabbit rather than defending themselves against a zombie attack. Besides, the campfires, noise, and activity at the tent city have drawn most of the walker activity away from the gas station in recent days. Josh is now calling upon his childhood memories of hunting with his uncle Vernon up on Briar Mountain in order to get the scent back, get the old skills back. Once upon a time, Josh was an eagle-eyed hunter. But now, with this broken-down squirrel gun and frozen fingers … who knows?
“I worry about him, Josh,” Lilly says. “He’s a good man but he’s got issues.”
“Don’t we all.” Josh glances over his shoulder at Lilly coming down the hill, carefully stepping over a fallen log. She looks strong for the first time since the incident with Chad Bingham. Her face has healed nicely, barely showing any discoloration. The swelling has gone down around her eye, and she’s no longer limping or favoring her right side. “He sure fixed you up nice.”
“Yeah, I’m feeling a lot better.”
Josh pauses on the edge of the creek and waits for her. She joins him. He sees tracks in the hard-packed mud at the bottom of the creek bed. “Looks like we got a deer crossing here. I’m thinkin’ we follow the creek, ought to meet up with a critter or two.”
“Can we take a quick rest first?”
“You bet,” Josh says, motioning for her to have a seat on a log. She sits. He joins her, holding the shotgun across his lap. He lets out a sigh. He feels a tremendous urge to put his arm around her. What is wrong with him? Stricken with puppy love like some stupid teenager in the midst of all these horrors?
Josh looks down. “I like the way you take care of each other, you and old Bob.”
“Yeah, and you take care of all of us.”
Josh lets out a sigh. “Wish I could have taken better care of my mama.”
Lilly looks at him. “You never told me what happened.”
Josh takes a deep breath. “Like I told you, she was pretty sick for quite a few years … thought I was gonna lose her a few times … but she lived long enough to—” He stops, the sorrow ratcheting his insides, swelling up in him, surprising him with its suddenness.
Lilly sees the pain in his eyes. “It’s okay, Josh, if you don’t want to—”
He makes a feeble gesture, a wave of his big brown hand. “I don’t mind telling you what happened. I was still trying to get into work each morning at that point, still trying to get a paycheck in the early days of the Turn, just a few biter sightings back then. I ever tell you what I do? My profession?”
“You told me you were a cook.”
He gives her a nod. “Pretty serious one, if I do say so myself.” He looks at her, his voice softening. “Always wanted to fix you a proper dinner.” His eyes moisten. “My mama taught me the basics, rest her soul, taught me how to make a bread pudding that would bring tears to your eyes and joy to your belly.”
Lilly smiles at him, then her smile fades. “What happened to your mom, Josh?”
He stares at the dusting of snow on the matted leaves for quite some time, marshaling the energy to tell the story. “Muhammad Ali’s got nothing on my mama … she was a fighter, she fought that sickness like a champ, for years. But sweet? She was sweet as the day is long. Shaggy dogs and misfits—she would take anybody in, the raggiest-ass individuals, hardened panhandlers, homeless, it didn’t matter. She would take ’em in and call ’em ‘honey child’ and make them corn bread and sweet tea until they stole from her or got in a fight in her front parlor.”
“Sounds like she was a saint, Josh.”
Another shrug. “Wasn’t the best living conditions for me and my sisters, I’ll be honest with ya. We moved around a lot, different schools, and every day we would come home and find our place filled with strangers, but I loved the old gal.”
“I can see why.”
Josh swallows hard. Here it comes. The bad part, the part that haunts his dreams to this day. He gazes at the snow on the leaves. “It happened on a Sunday. I knew my mama was failing, wasn’t thinking straight. One doctor told us it was Alzheimer’s comin’ on. At this point, the dead was getting into the projects, but they still had the warning sirens comin’ on, announcements and shit. Our street was blocked off that day. When I left for work, Mama was just sittin’ at the window, staring out at them things slipping through the cordons, getting picked off by them SWAT guys. I didn’t think anything of it. I figured she’d be okay.”
He pauses, and Lilly doesn’t say anything. It’s clear to both of them that he has to share this with another human being or it will continue to eat away at him. “I tried to call her later that day. Guess the lines were down. Figured no news was good news. I think it was about five-thirty when I knocked off that day.”
He swallows the lump in his throat. He can feel Lilly’s gaze on him.
“I was rounding the corner at the top of my street. I flash my ID at the guys at the roadblock when I notice a lot of activity down the block. SWAT guys coming and going. Right in front of my building. I pull up. They holler at me to get the hell outta there and I tell them, hey, man, ease on back, I live here. They let me through. I see the front door to our apartment building wide open. Cops coming out and going in. Some of them carrying…”
Josh chokes on the words. He breathes. Braces himself. Wipes moisture from his eyes. “Some of them was carrying—whattyacallem—specimen containers? For human organs and such? I run up the stairs two at a time. I think I knocked over one of them cops. I get to our door on the second floor and there’s these dudes in hazmat suits blocking the entrance and I shove ’em aside and go in and I see…”
Josh feels the sorrow creeping up his gorge, strangling him. He pauses to take a breath. His tears burn and track down his chin.
“Josh, you don’t have to—”
“No, it’s awright, I need to … what I saw in there … I knew right off the bat what had happened. I knew the second I saw that window open and the table set. Mama had her wedding dishes out. You would not believe the blood. I mean, the place was painted in it.” He feels his voice cracking, and he swims against the tide of tears. “There was at least six of them things on the floor. SWAT guys must’ve took ’em out. There was … not much left of Mama.” He chokes. Swallows. Flinches at the searing pain in his chest. “There was … pieces of her on the table. With the good china. I saw … I saw … her fingers … all chewed up next to the gravy boat … what was left of her body … slumped in a chair … her head was all lolled over to one side … neck opened up—”
“Okay … Josh, you don’t need to … I’m sorry … I’m so sorry.”
Josh looks at her as though seeing her face in a new light, hovering there in the diffuse, snowy radiance, her eyes far away, as though in a dream.
* * *
Through her tears, Lilly Caul meets the big man’s gaze and her heart clenches. She wants to hold him, she wants to comfort this gentle colossus, stroke his massive shoulders and tell him it’s all going to be all right. She has never felt this close to another human being and it’s killing her. She doesn’t deserve his friendship, his loyalty, his protection, his love. What does she say? Your mama’s in a better place now? She refuses to diminish this terribly profound moment with stupid clichés.
She starts to say something else when Josh speaks up again in a low, drained, defeated voice, not taking his eyes off her. “She invited them things in for corn bread and beans … she took them in … like shaggy dogs … because that’s what she does. Loves all God’s creatures.” The big man slumps and his shoulders tremble as tears drip off his grizzled jaw and onto the front of his Salvation Army lumber jacket. “Probably called them ‘honey-child’ … right up until the moment they ate her.”
Then the big man lowers his head and lets out an alarming sound—half sob, half insane laughter—as the tears stream down his enormous, sculpted brown face.
The Walking Dead Collection Page 40