Defending No Where (The No Where Apocalypse Book 3) (2 page)

“Probably not,” she answered, stroking her lower lip with a pencil-thin finger. “Wilson’s an okay fellow, once you get to know him. Just announce yourself right off and raise your hands up nice and high.”

Clutching at my forehead, I moaned, “That’s just great. I’ve lived through all of this only to get shot by Hope’s grandfather. Just freaking great.”

Marge and Daisy approached. “I made a list,” Marge said enthusiastically, handing me a piece of paper. “Be sure to get some kind of milk, either cow or goat. Eggs would be good; Lettie says he has a large bunch of chickens. He may have jerky, too. That would be nice. And anything else that he might want to share.”

The two younger adult women stared at me as I studied the list. Both had stupid smiles plastered on their faces. Like that helped.

“You think I’m running to the grocery store?” I asked, perhaps a little terser than intended. But come on, what were they thinking?

“If he’s got flour, get some of that, too,” Lettie added, staring off into the woods. “A person can do a whole lot with a little bit of flour.”

Great, flipping great! Here I was, wandering off into uncharted territory, facing a foe that may or may not shoot me before I even spoke a word. And all the while, these three were having food fantasies. Glad to see we were all on the same page.
 

I rose, grabbing a large, empty backpack that I hoped to fill in the next few hours.

“Okay, two hours there, two hours back,” I said, playing with the broken zipper on the blue vinyl carrier. “As long as I don’t get shot or something…” I gave my group a grin, “…I should be back by late afternoon.”

They wished me their good lucks and patted me on the back. Then I began my journey into the unknown…again.

The walk went by quickly. Stepping off the gravel on the dead end just past Dizzy’s place, I followed a trail of some kind along the edge of a large boggy swamp. While I had hunted back here a few times, it was always with Dizzy in the lead, hence my hesitation.

Keeping to the high (thus dry) side of the swamp, I wove between bare tree branches and patches of thorny brown berry brush. The crunching soil beneath my feet told me I’d return with dry shoes, which made me happy. The brush tearing at my pants reminded me to tread lightly and not toss it aside with my hand, which would leave me bloody and unhappy.

Pausing with the sun directly overhead, I spied fencing ahead. It was the tall kind meant to keep deer and other animals out...and perhaps people. It looked to me like the fencing stretched two hundred yards on the side closest to me. Another fence about the same length ran dead away from me, eastwards. Maybe 10 acres, I figured. Perhaps a little more.

I crept through the brush, hoping to approach unnoticed. At the very least, I wanted to give the appearance of being a reasonable, non-harm-intending man. That lasted all of about 50 steps.

“Come out of the brush with your hands held high where I can see them,” a loud voice called out. “I’ve got you in my sight, and if I don’t see those hands of yours within three seconds, I’m pulling the trigger.”

I slowly raised my hands. So much for my stealthy approach.

Day 1,002 - continued

The man with the stainless steel rifle pointed at me was tall, thin and completely bald. I thought instantly of Ichabod Crane for some reason, though I couldn’t recall if Crane was bald or not.

“Mr. Wilson?” I shouted, inching towards the wrong end of a barrel. “I’m not here for any trouble. I just need to talk.”

Within 10 paces of one another, I saw his head raise from the wooden stock of the weapon. “Since you know who I am,” he said, not sounding any nicer, “how about you tell me who you might be?”

I stopped and made sure to keep my hands where he could see them. “Bob Reiniger,” I answered, hoping to see some sign of recognition in his face upon hearing the name. Suddenly it dawned on me: what if he and my grandpa had never met, or worse, didn’t like one another?

“I knew your grandpa,” he answered. He didn’t sound upset, but the gun was still pointed at me. “What do you want?” Geez, he was all kinds of friendly.

Daringly, I stepped forward right up to the fence. “I need to talk to you. Lettie Hamshire sent me.”

That got a smile. And the name caused the gun to lower, a little. “So you’re that young fellow hanging out with Lettie and all her people. You changed locations…after the fire?”

I nodded, finally feeling safe. “We all had to move into my place. It’s kind of cramped, but at least we’re safe.
 

He seemed to approve, lowering the gunstock to the ground.

“Fire kill anyone?” he asked, sounding as if he didn’t care one way or the other.

“Dizzy,” I answered solemnly. “But he was shot. That gang of thieves tearing around on horseback caused it all.”

He spit next to himself and nodded. “Clyde Barster and his gang of assholes,” he muttered in disdain. “Not bad enough we all gotta live like this, but we gotta put up with the likes of him.”

I leaned against the fence. “You know the guy?”

He shrugged, making brief eye contact. “I know everyone up here,” he stated. It didn’t sound like he was bragging, more like just something he knew. “He comes from down by Amasa. Robbed that place blind during the first winter. Now he stays alive by stealing from others. Poor Dizzy.”

He extended a long-fingered hand through the fencing. “Thaddeus Wilson,” he said, introducing himself.

I shook it, breathing a sigh of relief with the progress I was making, though I still had a long way to go with this one. “You can just call me Wilson, for obvious reasons,” he continued. His eyes narrowed as he wet his lips. “I suppose you want to talk some rubbish about a pregnant girl now?”

Crap! This guy was prepared for anything. Next, he’d be guessing how many eggs I planned on fitting in my backpack.

He frowned, leaning on the opposite side of the fence. “It ain’t ours, ya know.” Oh, so he wanted to play it that way — denial. I already had the trump card for that angle.

“Tell me, Mr. Wilson,” I began, fighting back a grin, “back when you had hair, what color was it?”

His face remained unchanged. “Can’t really recall. Been a while since I lost it all.”

“How about your ex-wife’s? Or your boys?” I knew if I stayed after it, the truth would eventually pop. Plus, I already knew the answer.

“Don’t see where that’s none of your business,” he answered, avoiding eye contact at all costs.

Time for the kill shot. “If I was a bettin’ man, I’d say it was red. Somewhere there’s red hair, right?” I rolled my head to force him to look me in the face.

He was quiet for several minutes, rubbing at his lips with dirty fingers. “It was Jimmy,” he finally surrendered in a quiet tone. “Johnny told me all about it. Said they were only intimate once, not that it matters now, I suppose.”

“And she has arrived,” I added, noting the surprise in his face.

“She?” he asked, his voice catching on the single word.

“Yes,” I replied, nodding. “A beautiful little girl named Hope.”

I saw the corners of his lips curl slightly. “Seems like a funny name, given what we’re up against nowadays.”

I smiled and nodded. I agreed, but funny as it sounded, Hope was the only thing keeping us from giving up.

Day 1,003

I returned from my adventure with a bounty none of us could’ve ever imagined. With the weight of my bag and an extra gunnysack thrust upon me by Wilson, I didn’t return until well after dark. It wasn’t until I flopped the bags onto the floor and myself on the couch that things began to add up.

My strange new friend left me standing by his fence for several hours as he assembled a care package. He mentioned something about it being ‘his duty’. Couldn’t have a poor defenseless baby starve to death, he claimed, not as long as he could help.

So I waited, sitting against the fence, while the white, puffy clouds occasionally blocked the direct sunlight, only to race eastward after a bit. Behind me, the sounds of cows and sheep droned into the warm spring afternoon.

I had fallen asleep by the time he came back. Guiding me to a gate in the mid-section of his fencing, he undid the lock and passed the hefty sack to me.

“I’d like to come visit sometime, if I could,” he requested.

We agreed on several days from then and parted ways with another handshake.

He never told me what was in the bag, but Lettie, Marge and Daisy tore into it as soon as I dropped it to the floor.

Inside was a cornucopia of goods that took our breath away. Wilson, it seemed, was a resourceful man in the wilderness.

Marge and Daisy announced each gift: three cans of powdered lemonade, two dozen carefully packed eggs, a package wrapped in white butcher paper with a large pile of smoked ham, six small containers of milk and a small bag of flour.
 

Daisy began to cry when she reached the bottom of the sack.

“Containers...” she gasped, brushing way tears. “Four containers of powdered baby formula.”

How and why raced through my mind. Somehow in the middle of the worst the world could throw at us, this tall, thin, rather dull-looking man had the answer to all of our prayers.

Hope sucked formula from the bottle, only stopping to be burped midway through. It was then I realized that the baby had cried very little. Finally, we were all able to sleep and breathe like normal people again.

When Hope finished the second bottle, Daisy burped her and laid the happy child on some blankets on the couch. Her cooing lulled her to sleep almost instantly.

Beside me, Lettie stared at the miracle.

“Never thought that child would quit screaming,” she crowed, peeking over the edge of the blankets at her. “Glad her mother is finally happy as well. She getting dressed?”

She
addressed the last part to Marge, or perhaps Daisy. I had no idea what the teen mother was up to.

“She said she wanted to look nice for Mr. Wilson’s visit,” Daisy answered, scurrying about the room. “Has anyone seen the hairbrush?”

While we only had one hairbrush, that wasn’t the worst of it. Seven people also shared two toothbrushes. And all toothpaste had vanished with the fire at Lettie’s home.

“He said he’d come sometime after high noon,” I announced, pondering whether I should head outside and cut some more wood. Remembering that it might wake Hope, I decided to hold off. Instead, I sat on the bench out front to keep an eye on Nate and Libby.

Though not as warm as the previous week, the sun still felt good. Everything felt good, actually. We finally had a little food, a happy baby and the pressure of the daily grind had loosened, thanks to Wilson’s promise of sharing what he could.

Deep inside, the reality of my world darkened my soul. There was a problem that needed solving, and soon, before it found us again.

Lettie must have seen it on my face when she joined me outside.

“You know, everyone is well aware of what bothers you.” It wasn’t really a question, more of a statement from the old woman.

I nodded minutely. “It’s not going away, you know. When I went for the last of the food after your place burned down, there were strange tracks by the cellar door. Not mine for sure. And three or four sets of them. They know we had more.”

Lettie huffed at my wisdom. “Well, they ought to know it’s all gone by now then.”

That made sense, but the idea of those people attacking one last time, even if we prevailed, made my stomach flip.

“It’s only a matter of time before they show up here, Lettie,” I replied quietly. “I know it, you know it…” I thrust a thumb over my shoulder. “And they all know it. Gotta be dealt with.”

Gently, she patted my hands. “Just give it a little more time,” she said. “Just a little more. Then you can do what you got to.”

Day 1,006

I must have had my days mixed up. Or heard wrong. It wasn’t until almost a full week after my initial visit with Wilson that I saw him walking down the road in a slight drizzle.

From a fog he appeared, dressed in an old black suit coat, matching pants that were a bit too short and what looked like a fresh white shirt. Behind him he pulled a wagon. The clanging metal wheels announced his arrival as he descended from the roadway.

“Thaddeus Wilson,” Lettie announced from the doorway. “I haven’t laid eyes on you since before this hell all began.”

He tipped the wide-brimmed black hat in her direction. “Afternoon, Lettie.” He nodded at me. “Bob.” From the way he was dressed he could have once upon a time been mistaken for Amish or Mennonite. Now he was just another odd character in our equally odd world.

“What’d you bring us, Wilson?” I asked, pointing at his wagon.

Removing his hat, he ran a hand over his smooth head. “Oh, just a couple more things,” he drawled, looking at the wagon more than Lettie or I. “Just some stuff I didn’t need that I thought you could use.”

“Some beef jerky, dried and salted bacon, half-dozen large jars of boiled potatoes.” He walked back and lifted the tarp. “Some dried beets, turnips, grapes.” He lifted a bag and tossed it at us. “And this was the bonus find.”

I opened it, unsure of what I might find. Pieces of white cloth. I pulled one out and held it up for Lettie’s inspection. She smiled.

“Cloth diapers,” she proclaimed. “Those will come in mighty handy.” She cast a glance at our visitor. “Where’d you come up with them, Thaddeus?”

He grinned youthfully. “Me and the wife never threw anything out. Never knew when you might be able to use it.”

I nodded, understanding the wisdom. “Where’d you get the baby formula?” I asked. “I would think all the canned stuff would have been long gone by now.”

Playing with his hat, he shrugged. “I’m a good trader,” he stated modestly. “People want what I got, food mostly. I knew that little girl was coming before last winter. So I put the word out.”

He stared at me seriously. “Got to protect our own,” he said, his eyes never leaving mine. “And I got news for you on Barster’s location. But first, I’d like to see my granddaughter, if you don’t mind.”

Ah, quid pro quo. I could produce a baby. Especially if it meant I received the information I so desperately needed. Together, we all went inside.