The two women reached the top of the span of the bridge and came to a halt. From their position, they could see the camp of the army that was gathered on the far side. Whoever was running the show had their ducks in a row, so to speak. The camp was set up in a circular fashion with a central hub. There were picket guards set at intervals and Catie was able to spot three different locations with lookouts placed up on the roofs of the surrounding buildings.
Just based on what she was seeing made her doubt their chance of success if they were forced to face these people in a fight. What had changed since Erin’s death? This was not the group that she remembered slipping away from in the middle of the night after killing Erin Bergman.
For some reason, Catie reached over and took Jess by the hand. She just needed the comfort of another person’s touch at the moment. After all these years, it was very possible that her entire future rested on what happened in the next several minutes.
They started down the slope of the bridge that would take them to the north side of the Tennessee River. It did not take long for one of the picket sentries to spot them. A team of six people broke away from the camp and started up to meet them. Catie came to a stop, it might be best to let them close the rest of the distance. Also, she felt that stopping would send a message that this meeting was one of non-aggression.
“Ladies, I am going to have to ask you to step away from each other and get on your knees. Please place your hands behind your head and allow my people to come search you for weapons,” a man called once he and his group were within about fifty feet.
Catie and Jess complied. The five individuals, besides the man who had spoken, came up cautiously. They were looking every direction at once, but it was being done in a calm and controlled manner; there was no display of fear by any of the men and women who approached.
A woman stepped up to Catie and began to give her a very thorough pat down. As she came across various weapons, she would remove them and set them on the ground a few feet away. It did not seem as if they were being confiscated. More like they were simply being catalogued and noted. The same was being done with Jess.
Once the search was complete, the man who had addressed them came forward. “On your feet, please.”
Catie rose, Jess giving her a hand up. The man stopped a few feet from them and gave Catie a more appraising look. Pursing his lips, he sighed.
“You do fit the description. I don’t recall anything about you being pregnant, but seeing as you aren’t that far along, I imagine it is likely that your condition was not generally known. Maybe it was, maybe that part just got left off for whatever reason, but my gut tells me that you are the person responsible for killing Erin Bergman in her command tent.” The man glanced over at Jess. “I have no idea who you are, but I will ask you to please come with us. Don’t create any trouble and this goes better for everybody. Since you are the ones who approached us, I am going to take you on good faith that you are going to behave.”
The man motioned for the other guards to lead the way back to the main camp. Catie and Jess were allowed to stay together, but they were not yet given their weapons. As they walked into the massive camp, Catie saw people going about their business. There did not seem to be any alarm or even all that much curiosity. Those who did look their way only did so briefly and then returned to whatever it was they were doing previously.
They were led to the center of camp and escorted into a tent. The man who had done all the talking stepped inside with them.
“Please, make yourself comfortable,” he said.
“Okay,” Catie snapped. “I think I’ve had enough of the polite crap. Are we prisoners?”
“No, I don’t believe I ever said such a thing,” the man replied.
He stood in the entrance to the tent, his arms folded over his chest. He was tall and his blond hair was pulled back in a ponytail. He had a broad chest and his face showed the scars of what had probably been horrible acne. Still, that only gave him a rugged look more than anything else. In truth, Catie thought him quite handsome given the circumstances.
“Then what is the deal?” Jess stepped up beside Catie.
“Before I answer anything, you have to meet with the commander. He will answer all your questions, I’m pretty sure of that.”
“And so what…we sit in here and wait for a few days until this mysterious commander gets around to seeing us?” Catie scoffed.
“I am sure it will not be a few days,” the man replied. Catie felt her anger ramp up another notch as he actually laughed and gave her a dismissive wave.
“Yes, well, I wouldn’t wait too long if you know what is good for you,” Catie growled.
“Yep, I think I will be able to report that we have the right woman.” The man clapped his hands together and turned to leave. He paused in the entry to the tent and turned quickly, a smile still on his face. “I know you will probably tell me to go to hell, but I figure it is at least worth asking. You can choose to not answer naturally.”
Catie stared at the man. After a few seconds the man finally decided to ask the question. “Are you Catie Dreon?”
Catie simply continued to stare at the man. She did not blink, and for several heartbeats, she did not even breathe.
“Yeah, I didn’t figure you would answer.” The man turned to leave.
“Wait!” Catie called. The man stopped and ducked his head back inside the tent. “If I answer your question, will you grant me one request?”
“I can only promise to try.”
“Let Jess go. She has nothing to do with anything that happened here. I just met her a short time ago.”
“Catie, no,” Jess spoke up, her voice urgent and strained.
“Yeah, that is out of my control,” the man said. His smile had faded and he gave a slight nod to Catie and Jess before turning to depart.
“What are you doing?” Jess turned on Catie once the tent was empty except for just the two of them.
“I should have made this trip alone,” Catie sighed. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“You were thinking that we both have a stake in this. It is not just one of us who are at risk of having the people following her completely wiped out by this army.”
“Did you see the way they have things going on here?” Catie asked. Before Jess could answer, she continued. “This is not just some rag-tag bunch of raiders. They have this place set up like an old school military encampment with the tent I have to assume to be the command center in the middle. People are not just lounging around, they are cleaning weapons and mending gear. Raiders usually run things into the ground until they need to replace it. Sure, there are exceptions if somebody in the group has some sort of ingrained ethic about order and maintenance, but most raiders are lazy by nature which is why they raid…besides the whole being a sociopath thing. I underestimated them because of who they had running things. That was my mistake.”
“But you don’t know—” Jess began. Catie held up a hand to silence her.
“Shh, somebody’s coming.”
The two women turned to face the entrance. They gave each other’s hand a squeeze and then moved just far enough apart so that they could not simply be taken down easily and in one swift move by whoever was going to walk through that flap.
When the flap opened, the dazzling sunlight outside made it impossible to see anything other than a large shadowy outline. The man appeared to be fairly large and took up most of the entrance. Suddenly he seemed to lurch forward.
At the same moment the large man sort of tumbled into the tent, a voice from outside snapped, “For the love of all that’s holy, Rob, can you not just stop in the doorway. I’m right behind you, you big oaf.”
The voice sparked something in Catie’s memory. A moment later, a second figure entered the tent. This man was much more slender and a few inches taller than the other person who was straightening up and casting a nasty look over his shoulder.
“If it was Catie, there is no way I was just going to barge in. That woman can be a bit impulsive. And besides, I didn’t see you offering to go in first.”
“That is because you insisted that you knew what to do and how to handle her,” the second voice griped.
The slender man moved into the light cast by the single lantern hanging in the tent. Catie’s eyes went wide with recognition. At first she did not believe it.
“Sam? Sam Redding?”
Sam had been with the group that Catie had met back when she was in Erin’s camp. There was a small movement growing consisting of people who had decided that they were tired of following a lunatic. Only, if Catie remembered correctly, there had been a lot of talk back then and not much in the way of action. She had left them the night of Kevin’s death and set out on her own.
“I knew you would eventually turn up,” Sam said with a laugh that sounded rich and full. “You were too much of a bad ass to go down.”
“He calls you Mad Madge,” the big man offered.
“Rob McKay,” Catie said as she stepped up to the pair and planted her hand on her hips. “My Carrot Top and Erkel, I am not going to say that I ever thought I would see either of you again. And Darlene?”
The two men did not even bother to try and hide it. Each was shaking his head in the negative. Catie almost asked how, but then decided that she really didn’t want to know the horrible details. The fact that the woman was dead was all she really needed. It was too bad, but that was also a very real and regular part of the world they lived in.
“So I take it that you know these people?” Jess said with a hint of caution in her voice.
Catie turned to the woman and saw an expression of mistrust leaking in around the edges. It took her a moment to figure out what might be wrong.
“No, Jess, this is not a set-up. I had no idea these two were running the show with this army.” Catie spun on the men as a thought struck. “Cherish Brandini!” she blurted.
Both men made a face like each had just tasted something rotten. Sam was the one to speak. “You’ve seen her? Please, if you could tell us where…”
“She’s dead,” Catie said after placing a reassuring hand on Jess’s shoulder. “But she was captured with a group, we thought they were part of this army.”
“She was banished, but a few of Erin’s lackeys left with her. Mostly men, and probably guys that she was leading around by the dick for the last few months,” Sam explained. “We have had an issue with some thefts and some minor harassment, but nothing worth being too upset about. We figured she would screw up sooner or later and get caught.”
“Well, that is one less thing to worry about,” Sam said, obviously sounding more relieved than he might if things were as minor as they had alluded.
“So I guess that just leaves us,” Jess stated, finally ready to become part of the conversation.
“Yes, we have been doing a lot of back and forth about this area,” Rob said. “The land is fertile and it was our belief that perhaps the peninsula shaped piece of land that is made by the bend in the Tennessee River just to the west of what used to be Chattanooga would be an ideal spot to call home.”
That statement hung in the air for a few seconds before Jess spoke again, she glanced at Catie as if seeking support and then turned her attention to the two men. “We have another community in the area that has been here for quite some time as have we. They took the Southside Garden area and used a lot of what they salvaged from the rundown industrial section to shore up their defense. A community once tried to settle over in the Moccasin Bend area that you are talking about, but there is a herd over there that has been unbeatable by any of us. Honestly, we simply have not possessed the numbers to take them down. The old mental hospital has claimed too many lives, and eventually it became a sort of legend. Sort of the local haunted house if you know what I mean.”
This was all news to Catie, but she listened as did Sam and Rob. There was a lot of head nodding and eventually an agreement was made. Sam and Rob would send emissaries to the Southside Garden community with an offer of peace. Together, both sides would send representatives to meet and discuss the best plan of attack for securing Moccasin Bend.
As the talking continued, Catie tuned it out and took a mental step back from everything. She watched as Sam, Rob, and Jess hunched over a table with a map that Sam had produced. They were planning and even smiling as they threw out ideas as well as the best way to ensure that the folks at Southside would join in this endeavor.
How could it happen so fast?
Catie wondered. It all seemed too easy. She braced herself for what would come. Surely it would not be this simple. Also, while the immunes were more nomadic and tribal, the other two communities were established with walls and homes and all sorts of things that were in place and had taken years to establish. Who would want to just give that up and start over?
Well, that part was not her concern. Her only real concern was that the immune be given a place at the table. She wanted them to have a real community and start living. It was time to quit simply surviving.
“Catie!” Sam was standing in front of her, snapping his fingers. “Do you have a herd of zombies being directed at our camp?”