Apocalypse Aftermath (62 page)

“You’re the boss.”

“Austin!”

He set the pot of soup aside.  “I’m serious.  Does it look like I’m in any shape to call the shots?  I barely made it into the bathroom and back.”

“
Why?  Your legs aren’t hurt.” Candice remarked.

Jessica gave her daughter a sharp look.  “Candice, that’s rude.”

“What?” Candice protested, then reddened.  “I didn’t mean it like that.”

Austin waved a hand placatingly in the air.  “It’s alright, I know what you meant.  I don’t guess you know very much about how we’re all put together, do you?”  Candice shook her head, trying to avoid Jessica’s still stern gaze.

“Well, in a nutshell, a lot of muscles in your chest and back and sides come into play when you use your arms and legs.  I can push myself, but that just moves around the hurt parts and keeps them from getting good healing done.  If I push too hard, I’m not gonna get any better.”

“And we don’t need that.” Jessica nodded.  “So for now, I’m content to just rest.
  For
you
to rest.  Here’s as good as anywhere for the moment, and it’s not like we’ve got somewhere else to be. ”

“Mom’s got it.”

“Even with as much as you eat I think we’ll be okay for a while.”

“Sorry.” he chuckled, then winced a little
, clasping lightly at his bruised chest.

“Sure, milk it for all it’s worth.” Jessica grinned back.

“Don’t make me laugh.” he said tightly, though his expression was amused.  “I’m not kidding, I’m pretty sure some of my ribs are broken.”

“What if the people who live here come back?”
Candice asked.

Jessica studied the girl, but she couldn’t fault the question.  “We’ll just have to talk to them.  If they want, we can leave.  But they might not be coming back.”

“Where do you think they went?”

“There’s no way to know.” Jessica said calmly as Austin started working on the green beans.  “We’ll worry about it if it comes up.”

Candice nodded uncertainly, and Jessica gave her a reassuring look.  “We’re going to let Austin finish eating, then we’ll get his bandages changed.  After that, I guess poking around the house some more would be a good idea.  There might even be some clean clothes that’ll fit us.” she said, fixing Austin with a speculative eye.  “Though that could be pushing providence too far.”

“I think I remember how to sew if it comes to that,
” he said wryly, “though anything I attempt will probably end up looking like he—heck.”

“Austin.” Candice said.

The big man switched his attention to her at the foot of the bed.  “What’s up girlie-girl.”

“I’m sorry I . . . I didn’t mean to make you get shot.” she said timidly.  “I . . . I was scared.”
  She swallowed.  “I was trying to be brave, but I was really scared.”

Austin exchanged a swift look with Jessica, then set the green beans down on the baking sheet.  “Come around here Candice.”

Candice darted a guilty, unhappy look at Jessica, then moved hesitantly to the bedside next to Austin.  He reached out slowly with his left arm and put his hand on her shoulder.  “It’s not your fault I got shot.” he told her.  “It’s Eckert’s fault, and he’s dead now.  He was selfish and mean, so I won’t lie and say I’m sorry he’s dead.  If he hadn’t been such a bas— bad guy, none of this would have happened.

“What your mom said last night was right; what you did was very dangerous.  Very dangerous.  You understand that?”  Austin’s voice was gentle but firm.

“Yes.” she whispered.

“Especially because you don’t have any practice or training with weapons.  And because he was someone who had a lot.  You got lucky.  We all got very, very lucky.  Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

Austin patted her shoulder lightly, suppressing a wince so the pain only crinkled the skin around his eyes a little as he moved his arm.  “Now I’m not mad, not even a little.  I hurt, and I need to get better, but that’s okay.  It doesn’t bother me except that it means I can’t help out very much until I do.  I’m not happy about having to wait and rest, but I’m not mad.  Do you believe me?”

Candice looked at him for several seconds, then nodded slowly.

“Good, because I’m not.  Your mom and I will have to talk it over, I think, but it might be a good idea if we spent a little time teaching you about guns so if you need to do something that dangerous again you won’t need to be so lucky.”

Jessica opened her mouth as his eyes flicked to her, then paused.  She
hated
the idea of Candice handling a weapon, but she couldn’t honestly tell herself it might not be necessary.  Liking it or not had nothing to do with it.  Things were not the way they’d been before, and pretending couldn’t put them back.

She nodded slightly, pain flickering in her gaze as she looked at Austin.  He nodded even more
subtly as he gazed at her, then looked back to Candice.  His voice took on an even sterner tone.

“That doesn’t mean either of us want you to go looking to use one.  I know I don’t want either you or your mom to need to, and I
know
your mom definitely doesn’t like it.  But as dangerous as it is that you might need to use a gun, it would be even
more
dangerous for you to not be able to if you had to.”  He glanced briefly at Jessica again, then sighed.  “You want to hear a secret?”

Candice nodded, and he grinned slightly.  “I don’t like to have to use guns.  Anytime I need to, it’s like I’ve failed.”

The girl shuffled her feet a little.  “But you carry a lot of them.”

“I do.  That’s because it’s my job to be dangerous.  But I’ve had a lot of training, since I was still in school.  And even though I know a lot about using guns, that doesn’t make it any less risky.  Look at me now.  I know a lot and I was a soldier in the Army and I still
got hurt.  That’s what I mean when I say it’s dangerous.  Anytime you put your hand on a weapon, bad things can happen.  Very bad things.  Especially if someone bad is there ready to hurt you.  It’s just that sometimes you have to take that chance or even worse things could happen to you or your mom.”

“Or you.”  Candice’s voice was still small and quiet.

“Or me.” Austin agreed.  “Does all this make sense?”

Candice was silent for several seconds.  Jessica eventually couldn’t take it, and spoke up.  “It’s okay to ask questions sweetie.  You need to understand what Austin’s saying.”

“Are we going to be safe?”

Jessica’s insides twisted around and she had to slash quickly through the pain to hold her face and voice steady as she spoke, ignoring the fear and terror as it fell aside before her focus on her daughter.  “I’m going to do everything I can to make sure we are, and Austin is too.  But everything is different now, so it would be a lie to say I know things are going to work out.  We’re going to have to always be careful, all the time.  Maybe things will get better, but we have to be ready for them to stay bad until we know for sure, for nosy kisses sure, they’re actually better.  Until me or Austin know they are, we all have to act like they’re not.”

“We have to keep being brave.”

“That’s right.  Careful and brave.” Jessica nodded.  “That’s what all your rules are about.”

“And yours too.”

Jessica smiled.  “Especially mine.  That’s why Austin’s going to teach you about guns when he’s ready, because with zombies and bad guys around, my rules mean even though I only want you to be safe, part of keeping you safe is going to be making sure you know about dangerous things.  I don’t like it, and it doesn’t make them any less dangerous, but Austin’s right.  So while we’re resting here, we’ll work on that.”

“Okay.”  Candice hesitated, then looked back at Austin.  “Can I hug you?”

Austin barked a brief laugh, then winced and grabbed for his left side.  “Oh, ahhh.  That hurts.  Yes, but you have to come around across the other side of the bed and only hug me on the right side.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure, just be careful.  A hug would be nice.”

Jessica watched as Candice circled around the bed, then climbed up and across the mattress.  Austin slid the sheet with the food out of the way, and Candice put her arms around his neck.  “I’m sorry.”

“I know girlie-girl.  I’m glad you and your mom are okay though.”

“I’m glad you’re going to get better.” she told him as buried her head next to his shoulder.

“I’m tough.  Just like your mom.”

Candice sat back and looked at Jessica, then nodded.  “Just like mom.”

“Zombies ahead, get ready.”

Darryl tightened his hands on the steering wheel of the battered station wagon as the voice came over the radio.  The town of Watkinsville had provided everything they’d said they could, including
the cars they’d mentioned.  Leading the way were two six wheel heavy duty pickups with plow blades attached.  Four regular trucks followed, each one carrying a pair of townies in the back.  Then came the Dogz, every one behind the wheel of a car of some sort.  Then the semi-trucks, followed by two tow trucks that brought up the rear.

The convoy stretched nearly a thousand feet.  Seventy men, armed and ready.  From the kind of hardware that had been handed out, Darryl suspected a military armory somewhere had been raided, but he didn’t honestly care where it had come from.  Everyone had an assault rifle, and four of the townies were responsible for carrying machine guns as well.  Darryl still wasn’t sure if any of it would be enough, but the time for second guessing was past.  Now there was only doing and praying.

He passed over the small creek he remembered from the map.  The waterway was barely worthy of the name, maybe a couple of feet deep and not much more than that wide.  He supposed it might fill up some during a heavy rain, but at the moment it was just a landmark.  It meant they were less than a mile from where the road was supposed to curve up right next to Loop 10, so they could cross over into Athens.

The convoy was traveling at a steady forty miles per hour, closed up tight.  He was at the head of the Dogz, which put him right behind the leading pickups.  It left him unable to see anything much past the back of the truck, but that was okay.  The theory everyone was going on was to keep moving and stay tight.  That was supposed to keep any zombies from doing much to harass the vehicles following the lead trucks.

He heard some gunfire from ahead.  A few seconds later he started passing zombies.  Some were tumbled to the ground, rolling or crawling across the pavement.  Others, slightly further back, were still on their feet.  They were all staggering toward the vehicles.  His wheels hit the first body that hadn’t been knocked fully aside by the plows and the station wagon lurched.  Darryl clung to the wheel and maintained his speed.  The car only had to last maybe two more miles.  He didn’t care what happened to its shocks.

“They’re not too thick so far.” Craig’s voice said on the radio.  Darryl nodded unconsciously, hoping that was true.  The man had been a deputy, but he was the sole surviving member of the town’s police force, and the mayor had promoted him to police chief.  Darryl wasn’t sure how useful a ‘police chief’ was anymore, but it wasn’t his concern.  What was involved whether or not Craig’s plan was going to work.

So far it was.  Quick glances snatched from his side mirrors showed him all the cars were holding tight in line with him.  Just as he couldn’t see ahead past the trucks, behind he couldn’t see past the first of the semi-trucks, but he didn’t care.  He had eyes on every one of his brothers, and so far they were all staying with him as the convoy headed north, and then northwest, along Daniells Bridge Road.

“Okay, the crossing’s in view.  Be ready to swing right.”

Darryl saw the brake lights on the truck ahead of him come on, and he applied his.  He barely felt the heavy rocking of the station wagon as the bodies he was rolling over started to become more numerous.  His concentration remained on the truck ahead, holding only feet from its rear bumper.  What attention he could spare stayed on the side mirrors, willing all the other cars to keep moving.  For his brothers to keep rolling.

“Turning now.”

Darryl could see the trees on the right starting to thin.  Open space appeared ahead, a two-lane stretch of pavement with dozens of zombies on it.  The first of the plow trucks turned right off Daniells Bridge and crossed the short expanse of grass to reach Loop 10.  The plow blade had been raised for the off-roading, and not all the zombies in its way were being knocked to the side.  Bodies were falling beneath the big vehicle.  The tires were mangling them as it kept moving, rocking violently on its shocks.

The second plow truck was right behind it, adding its weight to the carnage.  Darryl frowned, then grabbed for his radio.  “Dogz, watch your ass when you hit the grass.” he said quickly, pressing the button to talk.  “Keep your foot down so you don’t get stuck.”

Trucks were following the plow equipped leaders, rolling straight across the Loop.  It was a pair of two-lane roads that ran in opposite directions to encircle Athens, separated from each other by only a small grassy meridian with a slight dip.  The crossing from Daniells Bridge was almost directly across from the exit for US-29.  Normally there would be back tracking and turning around to get from here to there, but with zombies, the rules were out the window.