He continued to describe what happened and how they had escorted Melissa back home, but I only half-listened. My mind was turning things over and coming to a decision. At last he was finished.
“I am going to go tell Stevie,” I said as I got up. “He needs to know that his mom is back.” I started for the door and then turned to Billy. “And thank you. I’m not sure what he would have done or how he would have dealt with losing his mom.”
“I hate to be the one to say it,” Jim said softly, “but I think he lost her a while ago.”
“Until further notice, I am sorry to say that you are confined to the compound, Thalia,” Billy said as he emerged from the stall in a pair of baggy red sweats.
“What?” I snapped.
“You are all he has. You know the rules. Single-parent units are forbidden from being placed on security or patrol details.”
I opened my mouth, but then I closed it and nodded. Maybe I am learning, but the little voice in my head was screaming that my being selfish and thinking only of myself had cause enough trouble these past several days. It was time to think of other people’s wants and needs and put them ahead of my own for a change.
“Yes, sir,” I said with all sincerity.
As I headed back to the apartment, I began to feel lighter with each step. Before I was halfway, I broke into a run. For the first time in a while, I actually had good news.
Melissa was alive.
13
The months seemed to fly by. Slowly, Juan’s injuries healed. He still had a bit of a limp, and as the bitter cold of another Alaskan winter began to set in, he could feel aches deep in the joints of his knees.
As for Gerald, things went even slower, and the difficulties began to mount. He went through long spells where he could keep nothing down. Through it all, Juan remained at the man’s side and acted as his caretaker. The girls helped, often taking turns sitting at his side and reading stories to the man.
One evening, after the girls had gone to bed, Gerald called Juan to his bedside. When he entered the room, Juan was instantly hit with the smell of piss and feces.
“Let me get the tub,” Juan whispered. “I will get you cleaned up.”
“Wait,” Gerald called.
Juan stopped in his tracks. He heard something in the man’s voice that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He pushed aside the stink that threatened to make him gag and returned to the man’s bed.
“We are even, brother,” Gerald rasped. There were tears brimming in the man’s eyes and he could not meet Juan’s gaze.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that you can stop trying to take care of me. You have done more than anybody would these days. It is a sad fact, but a person in my condition is a drain on resources. Like any animal that is suffering, the best thing to do is—”
“Don’t say it!” Juan snapped. “Don’t you dare give up.”
“I lost hope when they took both my legs at the knee. I have one good hand, and one that eventually had to be removed at the wrist. What possible use can I serve?”
“But you have made it through each one of those events. Each time, you fought your way back. This is just another rough patch. Give it a little more time.”
Gerald held up his one good hand, indicating that Juan needed to calm down. “I don’t want the girls to see this, but you need to finish me. I am begging you. If you really want to square any debts that you think that you owe me, then do me this one favor and put me down.”
Juan sighed. He took a closer look at Gerald, removing his own blindness to the man’s real condition. While the legs had both been amputated, it looked like the right one was once again losing a battle with infection. There was a smell under the urine and feces that hinted at rot and decay. Gerald had survived the attack of a bear and a zombie herd, but his body simply could not recover from all of the trauma.
There was a knock at the door, and Juan felt shame at the sudden relief. He gave the man a pat on the arm and went to answer the door. A bundled figure stood on the porch, fur-lined hood pulled tight and a protective facemask preventing anybody from being able to tell the identity…unless you knew the person well.
Over the months, Juan had built a kinship with Kit. The man had been the only person to support Juan’s decision to try and continue caring for Gerald. One night after a considerable amount of hard cider had been consumed, the two had discovered that they had been on the opposite sides of things before the apocalypse.
Kit had been a prison warden and a staunch supporter of harsh punishment for convicted criminals. Twice he had flown to Arizona to see some of the stricter and more unique forms of utilizing and controlling the incarcerated population.
They had a good laugh over it and then agreed that what was past was past. Both were committed to the future. When Juan made it known that he would not accept having Gerald dosed with a lethal concoction that would put him down, Kit had offered to help in any way that Juan might need.
It seemed like a strange coincidence that the man was arriving at this exact moment. After he shed himself of his protective gear and had taken a seat in front of the fire with a cup of hot tea to sip, the man reached in his pocket and produced a sheet of paper.
“You did all that you could, Juan” Kit said, handing the piece of paper to Juan as he blew the steam from his cup and took a sip.
Juan scanned it. He had been braced for this to be some edict from the council telling him that they would no longer supplement his rations to include Gerald. He’d actually been prepared for that and had started stockpiling extra food over the weeks. Instead, what he had was a scrawled note that looked as if it had been written by…
“One of my girls?” Juan looked up at Kit with a raised eyebrow.
“Denita brought this to me this afternoon. She said that Gerald helped them write it.”
Juan was floored. He did not know whether to be hurt, angry, or some combination of the two. How could that man expose his daughters to something so horrible?
Then it hit him like a punch in the throat. This was the New World. The days of being able to protect the children from the harsh realities of life could be a fatal mistake.
Just like the one that took Mackenzie
, a voice whispered in the dark corners of his mind.
“He asked me to end it for him,” Juan finally spoke.
“And are you going to honor his request?” Kit pressed. “Or are you going to continue to think of yourself at his expense.”
“But I owe—” Juan began, only to have Kit cut him off.
“You owe nothing. Those days are gone. The codes that you still cling to mean nothing. It is about survival. Pure and simple. Sure, we have built a community here. We do not want for food or anything else. Granted, we don’t spend the evenings staring at our computer or phones, frittering away our lives on the so-called social media. However, we are now seeing more babies survive than we lose. And that goes for the mothers as well.
We have a school designed for the world that we live in. The children are taught to hunt, farm, and to be able to recognize herbs and things we need for the natural medicines to try and combat infection. Hell, we even have a dentist. Granted, he has to use a foot-powered drill, and the anesthesia is for shit, but we are making our way.”
“What does this have to do with Gerald?” Juan said, refusing to allow the tears to reach his eyes by biting down on the inside of his cheek.
“We still live in a Spartan society. The strong survive and the weak or infirm perish. You had just arrived, so you missed it, but there was an old man named Sammy Singer. The dude was a Korean War vet. One day, he said goodbye to everybody and walked out into the woods. He knew it was his time. Hell, the Native Americans and Inuit have been doing things like that for years before civilization came in with the messed up idea that we needed to prolong life to the last second. Squeeze every bit out of it that we could.”
Kit sat back and took another sip of his tea. His voice had begun to harden and grow louder. Juan felt himself start to bristle, but deep down, he knew that everything Kit said had truth to it. Sure, it may not all be a truth that he would personally subscribe to, but he did see the logic of the man’s words.
They sat in silence as the fire crackled and popped. Juan finished his tea and then rose without a word. He walked into the room where Gerald was asleep (or at least pretending to be so). Juan stared down at the man for a while. He lost track of time as he considered what he needed to do.
Through it all, his mind continued to remind him that this same man had rescued him from the brink of death. He had risked his life to do so. Then, he had given freely of his belongings to care for Juan and his daughters when Juan had not been able.
And now the situation was reversed.
“It is not the same,” a voice whispered.
Juan looked down to see Gerald staring up at him. For the first time in weeks, the man’s eyes were clear and bright.
“When I took you in, you had a chance. And…you had those two little girls. I helped you because I knew that your injuries were not fatal. But…and make no mistake, if I’d felt for a moment that you would not pull through and be able to function, I would have either left you for dead, or I would have ended you right there.”
“But—” Juan started, but Gerald raised his one good hand.
“You came in here with a purpose. Finish this…for me.”
With that, the man shut his eyes. Juan stood quiet for several minutes. He was still standing there when he felt something tug at his left and then right hand. He looked down to see both his daughters at his side.
“The Grizzly Man is ready,
Papi
,” Denita whispered.
“I said a prayer for him already, so it is okay to send him to Mama and Jesus. He knows what to do when he gets there.” Della gave Juan’s hand a gentle squeeze.
The battle he’d waged all night to keep the tears at bay finally came to an end. Juan surrendered to his emotions. Only, as he began to let the tears flow, he was not sure who or what he was actually weeping for. He had been grateful to Gerald, but it was not as if they had grown close like brothers. They were both simply survivors. Maybe he was mourning the loss of one more survivor. He had no idea.
Juan drew the spike from his belt. He pulled the blanket up and covered the man’s face. Next, he pulled the pillow free. He did not think that he imagined the man lifting his head just a little to make the task easier.
Placing the spike right about where he imagined the center of Gerald’s forehead to be, Juan took a deep breath and held it.
“Our Father, who art in Heaven…” Della and Denita began to pray together. Juan said his own brief words to God, or whoever was out there.
“Please forgive me…”
With those words, Juan gripped the top of the spike with both hands and pushed down as hard as he could. There was only a slight resistance, and then the piece of steel plunged down.
Gerald’s body convulsed and trembled a few seconds, and then was still. Juan let go of the spike and stepped away. As he did, the girls, who were still reciting their prayer, stepped in and grabbed the corners of the blanket, pulling it up and over to cover the body.
Juan let them finish. When they did, he took them by the hands and led them out of the room. At some point, two more men had arrived. With nothing more than polite nods, they proceeded to the room and emerged a moment later with the body. It would be taken to the large fire pit and burned. Above that pit was the next day’s venison stew.
Even after his death, Gerald would perform one more task for the community.
“Nothing is wasted,” Juan whispered.
***
“But we can’t stay here!” Vix exclaimed.
“It is too late to move anyplace else,” Mike insisted.
This circular argument had been going on for several minutes now. Paddy, Gable, Randi and Algernon were gathered around and there seemed to be a split in the consensus. Randi and Algernon were of the same opinion as Vix.
From the roof of the Shell Centre, Gable had the ability to point to his own reasons for them staying put and making their stand here. To the east, a dark smudge could be seen seeping towards their location. Scouts had returned a short time ago to inform them that Dolph was rolling their direction.
According to the small group of refugees that had arrived just before Vix and Randi had returned from the Waterloo complex with their own new and terrifying revelation, this group of people had come begging to be let in. They told the familiar tale of how Dolph’s people had brought what seemed like the entire undead population of the whole of the UK to their walls. The perimeter defenses had crumpled like paper in seconds, not minutes.
They told the same story that so many others had shared about the terrible buzzing sound that preceded the wave of undead. This group even managed to take down five of the zombies fitted with the noise making packs, but it had no effect as the undead were already almost upon them. Also, it was now clear that Dolph had no further interest in capturing people. This was now seemingly just about the conquering of all England.
“We have no place to run at this point. It is clear that, however he has managed to do so, this Dolph is aware of our presence and is actively seeking us,” Mike stated.
“But the children,” Vix insisted. It was her only real argument. It was bad enough to face this maniac and his undead army, but the children were an unknown variable. It was well known that they did not act like the normal zombie. There were…stories. Of course it was always impossible to ferret out the real ones from the fabrications, but anybody who had ever encountered one of the little blighters knew very well that they seemed to possess some limited form of reason or ability that came across very near to cognizance.
And to see so many of them obviously gathered in one spot; well, nothing good could come from that, of this Vix was certain. However, there was one detail that she was struggling with in her mind. While the discussion continued without her, she replayed the encounter. She’d registered something, but the fear had pushed it down as being unimportant at the moment. Just then, the only thing she could concentrate on was trying to escape the Waterloo intact.
“They don’t have any teeth!” Vix blurted.
Everybody turned to face her, and she actually took a step back in uncertainty. Paddy was the first to prompt her to explain.
“When Randi and I encountered the children, there was something about them that I thought to be a bit odd. However, we were worried more about getting out of there and I guess it just did not occur to me until now. While not true for all of them, many of the children have either no teeth at all, or very few.”