The Breadwinner Trilogy (Book 1): The Breadwinner (13 page)

“Ben, you have to take her and leave me.”  Sal yelled to his friend.  “Go now!”

Ben cracked his neck and turned to the crowd of dead approaching them.  He clutched his gun in one hand and picked up Sal’s bat with the other.  “Veronica get out of here.”  He said sternly.

“Ben what are you doing?”  Sal winced in pain on the sidewalk, nearly passing out.

“Ben!” Veronica tried to hold her brother up with her shoulder; he was bleeding uncontrollably and had stopped making any noise.  “I need your help!”  Isaac became dead weight.  She brought him back down to the sidewalk and shook him as she screamed.  “Isaac?!”  His eyes stared off at nothing.  Her hands began to shake.  “Isaac?”  Her brother had died, just as his father before him.

“Amorcita.  You need to go.”  Veronica looked at Sal as he closed his eyes for the last time.

Everything suddenly began moving as if in slow motion and all the sound was sucked out of the world around her.  She stared up at Ben who had started firing at the eaters running up the street yet she heard no shots.  She looked back at her brother’s still unmoving eyes as they began to glaze over a milky white and knew what needed to be done.  She hastily grabbed her gun from her bag.  “I love you.”  She told him, yet she didn’t hear herself say it, nor did she hear the shot she fired into his head.  Without another thought, without another second to spare, she threw herself to her feet and tore off running in the direction of the highway.  Looking back only once to see a tsunami of death advancing on her only friend left in the whole world.

She ran faster than anyone ever had and had it been the right time, she would have entertained the thought of pretending to be the winner of a famous race somewhere.  She hit the highway without a sound and kept running, weaving in and out of abandoned cars and avoiding small clusters of eaters here and there.  She was too fast, even for them, and her light steps barely made a sound, she was instantly forgotten to them.  She began to feel cold drops on her skin and in an instant, the sky erupted with what felt like the heaviest rain she had ever been caught in.  The sounds of the world collided once again with her ears and she collapsed to the asphalt, panting, her tongue thick in her dry mouth.  She looked around, bewildered by her surroundings.  She didn’t even consciously know she had made it this far.  How long have I been running?  Where am I?  She looked around frantically; there were no eaters after her.  She noticed a semi-truck about 15 feet up ahead of her.  She got back onto her feet, looking around her once more, and made it inside in under a minute.  It was a sleeper cab and at this point she didn’t care if it was empty.  She threw herself into the back and flopped onto the bed, slamming the small door behind her.  The room smelled awful but she didn’t care.  She lay on her back, staring up at the ceiling, not even bothering to look around her and take in the details of her surroundings.  The rain slamming against the roof of the cab filled her ears and Veronica cried herself to sleep.

In The Beginning

Veronica woke to silence.  The musty aroma of the cab filled her nostrils.  She sat up on the bed, which was surprisingly comfortable and rubbed her eyes.  A calendar full of naked women hung on the wall across from her and other miscellaneous junk filled the room.  A case of water sit untouched, as if waiting for her.  She leapt toward it and tore into its plastic, chugging down almost a whole bottle instantly.  She panted from her furious drinking and sat in silence for a moment, taking in her situation. 

“Everyone I know is dead.”  She looked around the sleeper, almost as if expecting an answer.  “Everyone I know is dead.”  She repeated to herself and her eyes dropped to the floor.  She felt like she should cry but couldn’t muster up any more emotion.  She was empty.  There was a small bag full of foul smelling rags in the sleeper with her.  She threw them to the floor and filled the bag with as many of the waters as she knew she could comfortably carry. 

She crept into the front of the cab and carefully scanned the area around the truck.  The coast was clear and she quietly opened the door and got out.  The sun was getting ready to set, meaning she had slept nearly the entire day away.  She looked around and found a comfortable spot to relieve herself and as she squat by a tree she noticed a pile of discarded PVC pipe on the side of the highway.  She made her way to it and picked out the perfect and most dangerous looking piece she could appropriately wield for protection.  She nodded approvingly at her find and adjusted the bag’s strap around her shoulder.  She smoothed out her filthy purple shirt and headed off for her destination. 

Veronica wasn’t sure how long it would take her to get there, she wasn’t even sure how far she’d already come from the city limits, but she was sure as hell not going to let anything stop her.  She tried hard to busy her mind with song lyrics or anything at all to keep from thinking of the world around her, all the while straining her ears for the sound of a threat.

She did a good job of keeping herself busy.  She didn’t even notice the big green sign off to her right.

Franklin Woods – 6 miles

Paradise Bay – 8 miles

Part III:  Tying Up Loose Ends

“These stupid assholes are going to get themselves killed!”  Andrew cried out over his shoulder.  His hulking frame took up almost the entire window as he watched in amazement the spectacle in the street below.  Five people had silently made their way down his street only to be ambushed by the local creeps that had taken to lurking, robbing and killing anything that they came across since the world went ass up, as Andrew liked to say.  One of the women in the group had begun screaming when the thugs revealed themselves.

A thin pale hand found its way onto his dark skin, slowly caressing his arm.  “Keep your voice down,” Juliette said softly.  “We don’t want them to find us too.”  Andrew turned to look at his girlfriend and shook his head.

“Are you bein’ serious right now?”  His brow creased as he shook her hand off his arm, “We need to do somethin’ about this!”

Juliette folded her arms across her small chest.  “We’re not putting ourselves at risk for anyone else.  I thought we agreed on that?  No more playing hero.” 

“I’m not sayin’ we do anything crazy, I’m sayin’ we need to get rid of those fuckin’ thieves anyway, send them other folks on their way and get back inside.  I can’t sit in here and watch anybody else get wasted out there.”

“And I sure as hell don’t want all that hollerin’ and shit outside bringin’ those dead things to our front door.  Drew’s right girl, I’m sorry, but we were gonna run into those crazy looters sooner or later and I’d rather take them out now while they’re all distracted.”  Andrew’s brother Clyde had joined them in front of the window, making extravagant gestures as he spoke.

“Then you two do it.  I’m not leaving, I’m not helping.  I don’t care about anyone outside of this apartment and I’m locking the door once-“

“Oh shit!”  Clyde screamed out, smacking his brother on the back and tapping against the glass.  “Them fuckin’ things are out there now!”  The other woman in the group on the street was knocked down to the ground by an eater.  One of the members of the group that helped her was bitten, another began fighting back against the attackers, and off in the distance, the screams of a certain kind of death could be heard.

“Things are not lookin’ good.”  Andrew brought his big hands up and locked his fingers behind his head, closing his eyes, silently praying for a sign.  His brother squealed and squirmed, both in horror and intrigue at the scene rapidly unfolding before him.  He could feel Juliette’s glare of disapproval.  A loud shot rang out and Andrew’s eyes popped open. 

“Oh shit, they got guns!”  Clyde clapped his hands and shot Juliette a sassy look, “I’m out.”  He flashed her a peace sign and smacked his brother on the shoulder, “Let’s do this.”

Andrew turned around to Juliette, still standing with her arms folded, an expression of anger painted across her face.  Neither of them spoke as Andrew left his place at the window and joined his brother at the dining room table.  The brothers were identical in their muscular physique and almost the same in height, Andrew 6’4” and Clyde just an inch shorter.  Andrew had hard features and dark skin like his father while Clyde was light skinned and definitely took after his mother’s femininity. 

“How many you takin’?  Andrew asked his brother while he loaded his .357 and stashed extra ammo in his pockets.

“One for each hand and one for good luck.”  Clyde responded as he tied his long braids up in a tight ponytail.  He had two .45’s on each hip and a .40 S&W on the table before him.  Andrew had been a cop and had himself a fine collection of guns and ammunition.  His brother was a gay black bartender in the south so Andrew had made sure the man knew how to handle a weapon in case he ever needed to
defend himself.  Sometimes he thought his brother was an even better shot than he was.  He stole a glance at Juliette who now nervously paced near the large window. 

“Hey,” she stopped moving when he spoke but did not look at him.  “We got this.  You know that.” 

Andrew and Clyde moved down the stairs with a sort of practiced grace, they knew silent footsteps were necessary but speed counted for everything.  They exited the foyer that linked Clyde’s apartment with the shop underneath it and moved quickly to the front, weapons ready.  The last man standing from the group awaited the onslaught of the dead and began firing with bloody knuckles into the vicious screaming crowd.  The two brothers silently moved out and behind the man.  Andrew climbed up on a nearby car while Clyde went out into the street to get a good angle on the eaters.  The man from the group didn’t even flinch when he heard the other shots join his and the dead began dropping.  The closest eaters to him were met with a hard kick and a smash to the head from a Louisville Slugger.  It seemed that the twenty or so eaters were no match for the three of them. 

Heads popped and exploded like zits and bodies dropped to the ground all around the men as they fought off the creatures like it was a piece of cake.  Andrew dropped down to the street from the car, “I’m empty!”  He pulled a golf club, his Lieutenant’s favorite, from its place on his waistband.  Joining the last man
standing, he charged the remaining eaters, bludgeoning them into a second death while his brother fired rounds into the ones that didn’t stay down.

The street soon became silent and the trio stood panting and listening, waiting to hear more of their screams in the distance but the city didn’t have anything more for the men at that time.  The man with the bloody knuckles turned to face Andrew, his clothes stained and his skin streaked with gore.  “Thanks.”  It was all he could manage to say as he turned away from the man who had helped save his life and crouched down.  He checked the pulses of both the heavyset man lying motionless on the sidewalk and the small woman a few feet from him.

“I’m sorry about your friends, I wish we had been out here sooner.”  Andrew spoke solemnly as his brother came up beside him, watching the man prop up his friend against the brick wall of the building and drag the body of the woman over, placing her into his arms.  He didn’t need to check the pulse of the skinny teenager lying not far from them because half his face was gone and an enormous hole in his torso revealed his guts had been torn out.  The man dragged his body over as well and sat him next to the others.  He remained on one knee for a moment, just looking at what was now gone; perhaps reminiscing, or perhaps not thinking of anything at all. 

“Ben.”  He stood and extended a hand.

“Andrew, this is my brother, Clyde.”  They all shook hands.

“I appreciate the back up.  I was goin’ down with a fight no matter what happened, but you saved my ass.  I always wondered when somebody was gonna have to, now I can safely say I’m not looking forward to the next time.”

“Good, because there won’t be a next time.  Not from us anyway.”  They all were startled by Juliette’s sudden appearance.

“That would be Juliette.  My brother’s lack of better judgment.”  Clyde spit as he said it, giving Juliette a nasty look.

“Fuck you Clyde, you can stay out here and leave with this asshole for all I care.”

“Enough with that shit.  We already talked about this, if the two of you can’t get along then don’t talk at all.  Ever.”  Andrew was so tired of their bickering, they never liked each other and always seemed to pick the worst times to show it.  “Look, Ben, we got to get off the street.  I can spare some ammunition for you, but the three of us had a prior agreement about taking others in.”

Ben mildly chuckled to himself and thought of Pisano’s.  “Yeah, we did too.”  He motioned to the bodies of Sal and Lucy behind him.  “This is why I couldn’t stay even if you wanted me to.  There’s a girl running around out there and he was all she had left.”  He pointed to Isaac’s corpse and kept talking.  “When we were holed up in my place, we talked it over, we said we weren’t taking our chances with anyone and then these two kids literally come crashing through our window the other night.”  He lifted his shirt and wiped his brow.  “They gave me a reason to leave this city, to leave that shithole apartment and made me rethink my end of the world plans.”  Andrew and Clyde listened as he spoke while Juliette stared angrily at her boyfriend, mouthing something to him that Andrew thought might have been don’t even think about it.

“The fact that everyone’s dead and she’s running around by herself is not their fault.  It’s not yours, it’s not mine.  It’s these two pieces of shit.”  He grunted as he kicked the head of the man he had beaten to death.  “I really appreciate you goin’ out on a limb for me, but I’ve gotta go find my friend.”  Ben gathered the bags and placed them on both broad shoulders.  He nodded at the men and ignored Juliette behind him.  He nonchalantly walked away, moving the bat as he went, as if practicing his swing.