Arcadia (Book 1): Damn The Dead (5 page)

Tony kept a finger by his lips.

Whoever was outside was close to their cabin. Char could feel her heart beat. It thudded hard inside her ribcage. She knew her breathing had changed to quick, shallow breaths. Beads of sweat formed on her forehead. One rolled down the bridge of her nose. “What do we do?”

Tony shot her a look, as if asking if she didn’t understand the gesture he’d been making with his finger.

Their bug out bags leaned by the wall next to the door, the only obvious way out of the cabin, Char rolled quietly out of bed. She stayed low to the floor. On all fours, she crawled toward the door.

Tony knelt by the window, still keeping the curtains slightly parted. Thanks to a cloudless night, moonbeams filtered into the room and sprayed across the area rug in a long and thin ray of light. “I count seven,” he said, “At least one is a woman.”

His whispering sounded like thunder booming in the enveloping silence.

Char stood up and put her machete harness on over her head and shoulders. She belted the sword in place around her wrist. “Let’s go get ‘em.”

Tony got to his feet, and in two strides he crossed the room. He retrieved his bow and quiver, and placed his mouth near her ear. “I am going to try to open the window. I might be able to drop half of them before they even realize something is wrong. You—”

They heard the bang of a door being busted open.

Grace screamed.

“No time,” Char said.

Tony grabbed her arm. “I saw assault rifles. We need to be smart about this.”

Char shrugged her arm free. “We’re not staying here. We have to go help.”

Tony went back to the window. With the noise coming from outside, he pushed open the window, certain the sound made would be well masked. He parted the curtain, and knelt as he nocked an arrow in place. “Stay, Charlene. Wait until I say go,” he said.

Char heard Tony’s words just as she slid out of the cabin onto the small front porch. When they made it through this, she planned to kick Tony’s ass. He knew better than to call her by her full name. He was not her father. She had not been Charlene in over three years.

Char forgot her shoes. The bottoms of her bare feet protested, sending waves of pain up her calves through raw nerve endings. She held her machete out in front of her, considering the weapon an addition of her being and more than some prosthetic extension of her limbs. Staying with her back to the front of the cabin, she slinked across the porch to the side of the structure. She stood still, listening.

Nothing.

There was not even the sound of a struggle any longer. Char assumed Grace and Sam were two cabins down. Why they didn’t just stay in the one directly next door confused her. She was certain however, that one was vacant.

She bent forward and ran from her cabin to the vacant one. On that porch, she mimicked her movements, staying close and in the shadows as she moved toward the opposite end. The moon lit the rear of the locations. Keeping well hidden by darkness on the porches was not going to be difficult.

Char had been right. Sam and Grace were in the third cabin down from where she and Tony had been sleeping. From it, she heard muffled voices. Several people were inside the cabin. Were all the people Tony had seen inside, though? That was the question.

Where was Tony? Waiting with his bow by an open window was not going to help the situation. They needed to surprise the raiders and attack together.

Her chest felt tight, and for a moment she closed her eyes and focused on her breathing. Adrenaline and fear pulsed through her body, racing through her veins and arteries.

Rapid gunfire erupted. Char held her breath. She felt tears brim in front of her eyes, but she stood statue-still, waiting. Before long she heard one of the men speak: “What are we going to do with them, Broadhurst?”

“They’re coming with us.” It must have been Broadhurst answering the question.

“Both of them? We really only need the woman,” the first man said.

Char tried to imagine what was going on inside the cabin. Were Grace and Sam forced to kneel at gunpoint? Were they bound and gagged? Were they dead?

They couldn’t be dead. Either of them. That didn’t make sense, not if one of the guy’s was asking if they were taking both Grace and Sam. The fact that he was asking such a question indicated both of her friends were alive, and probably all right. Probably.

“Don’t move.”

Char gasped.

“Shh!”

It was Tony. He was all stealth, and had managed to get up alongside her without her having noticed. “They’re going to take them.”

“Shh.”

Char bit her lip. He was driving her crazy. They needed to work out a plan. If they went at the raiders half-cocked, they’d get hurt or killed.

Boot footfalls on wood.

Char turned her head. The cabin was feet away, but she could not make out anything on its porch. Someone was on it though, and that someone more than likely had an assault rifle, but he couldn’t see her and Tony cowering in shadows.

“Get up. On your feet!” The orders came from inside the cabin.

Char stayed still. They didn’t have long. Their time to act, to re-act, was now. Options would become more limited.

“Take him out,” she said to Tony, knowing even in the dark he was an excellent archer.

“Who’s there?”

Char heard Tony sigh. Obviously her plan did not match his.

She heard it, though. The arrow hissed as it cut through still air and flew past her face. There was a fraction of a second before the sound of a body collapsing onto the porch was heard next.

“Run,” Tony said.

They darted off the porch and into the tall grass.

“The fence,” Char said. It had to be close.

The reached it, went under, and continued running. Thoughts swam inside Char’s mind. She knew they were now in danger.

Yelling and shouted commands came from behind her.

They would not be able to see Char and Tony as they searched for somewhere to hide. The problem was that there were no trees in the field.

“Drop down,” Tony said.

They got low in the grass, and faced the cabins. The cabin was a black silhouette with the moonlight behind it.

“I want that arrow back,” Tony said.

From where they were, they were close enough to see the shadows of men searching in and around the other cabins. They hurried, and barked out questions, comments and complaints.

Char said, “We need to—”

“Shh,” Tony said.

She was getting sick of his shushing her, calling her Charlene, worrying about an arrow. “We have to rescue them,” she said, determined to be heard.

“Stay quiet. I won’t warn you again,” Tony said. He spoke so softly, she wasn’t sure if he’d actually spoken. “This is not the time.”

They could have been there hiding in the tall grass for a half hour or two hours. Char couldn’t tell. The moon seemed to have moved across the sky. Or maybe it hadn’t.

Eventually, the raiders reunited back at the third cabin. Four people with assault rifles surrounded the cabin. Eventually, still silhouetted by the moon’s light, Char saw Grace and Sam. They had their fingers laced and hands on their heads as they were lead between the cabins and out of sight.

“What do we do now?” she said.

“We sit still. We wait.”

“Wait?” Char said. “For what?”

The others around the cabin did not immediately leave. They made like they had followed along after everyone else, but they never left. The shadows they cast were visible now and again.

Time ticked by.

Hours.

The ground felt cold under her belly.

“Do you think they checked our cabin? My shoes are in there,” she said.

Tony remained quiet.

Grace and Sam were gone. “How are we going to find them?”

“We’ll find them,” Tony said. “Tracking that many people will be as easy as following railroad tracks. Don’t worry. We’re going to get them back.”

Chapter 6

“Anna?”

Char looked at Grace. The woman struggled against the seat belt; her eyes were open wide. It was as if she wasn’t seeing, though. The laceration across her forehead looked deep. Thankfully it was no longer bleeding. It might be what caused her to lose consciousness. A concussion needed medical attention. Char had no idea what to do to help.

“Anna!”

Char reached out a hand and gently placed it on the woman’s arm. “Grace. You’re okay. It’s okay.” She was not sure who Anna was, nor was she sure she’d ask. People’s pasts were haunting.

“No!” Grace kept her mouth open long after the word was screamed.

Char needed to get Tony and Sam’s attention. They were too far ahead. The last thing she wanted to do was pull the cord to activate the rig’s horn, the blast would give away their location to anything even remotely close. It wasn’t like she was in a compact car where the honk sounded more like a feeble sneeze. She decided to apply the clutch and brakes. They were smart guys; they would realize she had stopped. They’d turn around and head back.

“Grace,” she said, as the rig stopped. The motor let out hisses and moans. It exhaled a puff of smoke out of the pipe over the cab’s roof, as if a dragon were settling down for the day.

Grace held onto a startled expression. Her hands shot forward and braced on the dash as she looked left and right. “Where are we?”

“You’re safe. We’ve got you. We saved you from those people,” Char said. She tried to speak softly. She had no idea what horrors Grace endured. She shuddered just thinking about the endless list of possibilities. It was surely the kind of things that nightmares were bred from.

“Charlene,” Grace said. Normally she’d have protested. This time she let it go. Grace was working to get her bearings in check. It was okay, forgivable.

“I’m here.”

“Sam? Where is he?”

“He’s safe, riding horseback with Tony.” She looked out the front window. She had expected to see Tony and Sam returning. There was no sign of them yet. She didn’t think they were that far ahead. “We’re far, far away from those bad people.”

“They were bad people,” Grace said. Her voice fell flat. Her eyes lowered, looking down at nothing, maybe the gearshift.

Char found it hard to swallow. “Who. . .who is Anna?”

Grace’s head snapped up. She locked eyes with Char.

Char knew better than to have asked. “I’m sorry. It’s none of my business.”

“She was my baby. Anna was my daughter.”

There was really no need to say more. Char had lost her family, friends, to the infected, to battles against crazy people she’d come to know as raiders. If Anna wasn’t here, it didn’t require much imagination to figure out how it ended. The only difference might be some specifics.

Grace’s expression softened. She took her hands away from the dash and folded them in her lap. “Anna was just ten years old. An itty-bitty thing. She looked so much like her father, I always tried not to hold that against her. He was such a son of a bitch that man, but he was handsome. I won’t lie. One of the first things that attracted me to him was his looks. He had these big broad shoulders and arms that looked more like marble than muscle. He was tall and dark, and had a deep raspy voice. The kind of voice that, when he whispered —it melted your heart. I don’t know if it was infatuation, or plain and simple lust. We were no good together. He drank too much, and I guess I did, too. Our arguments oftentimes became physical. He could have killed me if he wanted to, a single punch would have shut my lights forever. No. He never hit me. I guess what I mean when I say that our arguments became physical, is that I used to beat the shit out of him. Hit him till my hands hurt too bad to hit him anymore, and then I’d find something else to use to hit him with,” she said, smiling. She was actually giggling, as if the idea of abuse was funny. It wasn’t. She worried something might still be wrong with Grace. The woman needed help, a doctor.

Char felt uncomfortable and kept looking out the front windshield. They sat in the middle of nowhere, alone and vulnerable. She wanted Grace to share, to open up, to get it out, but what she didn’t want was for a horde of zombies to surround them because she wasn’t able to pay attention. Nor did she want raiders attacking or Broadhurst finding them. “Are you okay if I keep driving?”

Grace seemed not to hear. She just stared ahead; her hands fidgeted together in her lap. “No, we were not good together. Too much alike, I think. That saying about opposites attract? I think opposites attracting is less dangerous than similar people being together. I don’t even know if that makes any sense.”

It wasn’t a question. Grace did not seem to be talking to Char as much as she just seemed to be talking. There was a vacancy in Grace’s eyes that was unsettling. It had to do with opening doors to the past. The haunts freed. Char decided to shift into gear and try to catch up to Tony and Sam. She felt extremely isolated, and that scared her.

“He stayed three months after finding out I was carrying his child. I think staying even that long nearly killed him. Don’t get me wrong. He was excited about the idea of becoming a father. At least he let me believe he was, but I heard the rumbles from friends. He wasn’t being faithful to me. I’d put weight on, the way a pregnant woman will. He swore it had nothing to do with the weight. Said he just couldn’t perform with me, knowing it was his baby inside. Said something about that it just did something to him. He considered me a mother —not like he thought of me as his own mom. Nothing Oedipus-like. I suppose I understood. At the very least, I tried to understand, but one night he came home, had to be four in the morning, and he just smelled like liquor and sex. I knew he was out disrespecting me, but did he have to come home flaunting it? It was more than I could take, more than any woman should have to take, if you ask me. I just let him apologize, and let him beg and plead with me to forgive him. I remember just smiling at him. Smiling and nodding. All the while he just kept talking. I don’t know how many times he told me he loved me, or how many times he told me all the other women meant nothing to him. All the other women, seriously? But I didn’t say a word. I just kept giving him that smile—you know that smile, like I am sympathetic to his situation, and I get it that he had no other choice but to sleep with any woman that would have him? For some reason that calmed him down. He climbed into bed and passed out. That’s when I went and got his baseball bat that he kept with his softball team stuff, and I kicked that mother fucker’s ass with it. Broke ribs and bruised every part of his body. Every inch of his skin had to have been a terrible shade of black and blue.”

When Grace laughed, Char wanted to cup her hands over her ears.

The light at the end of the tunnel was on horseback, just ahead of them. Tony slowed his horse, and Char lowered the driver side window.

“You guys okay? We were just about to turn around,” Tony said. He kept looking up at Char and then back to the road as it unfolded.

“Grace is awake. Something’s wrong. We’re going to have to stop soon; now if possible.”

“We’ll see if we can find a good place to pull off the road,” he said.

Char put up the window. Grace did not seem to notice the interruption.

“Needless to say, he didn’t stay after that. Didn’t press charges or anything, but he didn’t stay. Instead of just punishing me by leaving, he punished Anna. He wanted nothing to do with her. Never tried to contact her, or me, for that matter. It was his loss. He missed out on being a father to one of the most wonderful little girls in the entire world,” Grace said. She made no move to wipe away tears that rolled down her cheeks, cutting through dirt and leaving clean streaks.

“I think they found a place for us to pull off the road,” Char said. She hoped Grace heard and understood her. She did not want to hear any more about Anna’s father. She did not think she could take it much more. As horrible a story as it was, it was still from a time when things were
normal
.

“We were on a city bus, headed downtown to do some shopping. The school year had started, and wouldn’t you know, Anna had a growth spurt, outgrowing everything I’d just bought her? I worked as a legal secretary, making shit for a wage. The lawyers made the big bucks. You know who did all the work, though? Us secretaries, the paralegals, but we were paid only a little better than fast-food workers. I could have had me a job at a McDonald’s with half the stress and aggravation. Instead, I wanted more of a career, something that Anna could be proud of. It makes a difference. Someone ever asked her what her mother did for a living, she could tell them I worked at a big, fancy law firm, and not flipping burgers or sitting fries into a deep fryer. There ain’t nothing wrong with a job like McDonalds. That’s honest work. I just wanted more, even if it was just the perception of more. Because, like I told you, the money I made, it was only a fraction better than the pay I’d have received from a place like McDonalds. I chose to do all this work, long days, late evenings, all so the lawyers I supported could sign their names on the bottom of the research I’d conducted, the papers I’d constructed.” Grace waved a dismissive hand in the air as if wiping a memory clear.

Tony and Sam were off their horses, waving Char their way. On the left side she saw what looked like a flat field. It seemed like a perfect place to pull over. She switched gears and used her directional. Tony shook his head.

“I had a bit of money saved. Wanted to use it for Christmas shopping. That was a big holiday in my family. Growing up, we never had much. My mother raised seven of us on her own. We didn’t have a pot to piss in, but come Christmas there was always a gift under the tree. For each of us. Some years it was just one gift a piece. Some years there was more. Usually though, it was just one. It didn’t matter what was enclosed in that wrapping paper. The care my mother took with each gift, I figured she spent hours just doing the wrapping. She made sure the corners were perfectly creased and folded and taped down. She used bows and ribbons. I almost hated opening them. Almost.” Grace laughed. At least the memories that must have been flashing inside her mind made her happy. “But just like my brothers and sisters, when it was my turn to open my gift, I tore into that paper like there was no tomorrow.”

Char stopped the truck. She knew not to shut down the engine. The nights got cold. She had no idea how hard it would be to start in the morning.

Her stomach growled.

She was hungry.

She remembered something. The back of the rig, the trailer. It was packed full with food. Drinks. They were going to feast. She reached for the door handle.

Grace grabbed her arm.

Char looked into Grace’s eyes. They silently begged Char to stay, to listen.

There was a knock on the door.

Char lowered the window. “We’ll be right out. Give us a minute.”

“You guys okay?” Tony said.

Char nodded. “We just need a minute. Girl talk,” she said.

Tony walked away.

Char looked back at Grace. She hated to do it. She asked, “What happened on the bus, Grace?”

#  #  #

“Can I play with your phone?” Anna sat on the bench next to her mother.

“Wait until we get onto the bus, dear,” Grace said. There were two other people waiting with them. A teenaged boy wore oversized headphones, the adapter plugged into a phone he held in both hands an inch from his face. The brim of his baseball cap was tilted upward and worn to the side. Even though it was Saturday morning, the other person, an elderly woman, was dressed in a pant suit and carried a briefcase. Grace had worked countless Saturdays over the years and sympathized.

It wasn’t long before the bus came. It slowed to a stop in front of the bus sign, and the doors swooshed open. “Have your pass?” Grace said.

Anna held up her bus pass. “Right here, momma.”

Grace tapped her finger lovingly onto the tip of Anna’s nose. “Well then, our chariot awaits.”

“We have a chariot?”

Grace laughed. They stood up. She was so tempted to lift Anna into her arms. She knew better. The conflict at home stemmed from granting bits and pieces toward Anna’s independence. Anna tried to set rules. Grace figured she would at least hear them out. If they were unreasonable, she would pull rank and play the “I’m-your-mother” card.

There was to be no more hand holding. No kisses hello or goodbye unless no one was around to witness the displays of affection. Under no circumstances was Grace to carry Anna anywhere, except maybe up to bed when she fell asleep on the sofa in front of the television. Grace knew it was a phase. She’d gone through it with her own mother. It passed. Eventually. That was what Grace held onto, the hope that Anna would forget such silliness and welcome hugs and smooches again one day soon.

Until then, Grace agreed to abide by the rules. She would not force physical affection onto her daughter, as painstaking a task as it might prove to be.

“What are they doing?” Anna said, and pointed toward the back of the bus.

Grace shook her head and made a tsk, tsk sound. “Misbehaving.”