“You were going to do it again,” Audrey replied sullenly as she crossed her arms over her chest and pointedly turned her head away from him to stare out the window.
She was right. He hadn’t learned a damned thing, just like always. Repeating the same mistakes over and over, going further and further down the rabbit hole. It was what got him hooked. It was what got him in jail. It was what kept him from ever having a good life.
His lip twisted with disgust at himself. “Well what can I say? I’m a born and bred fuck up.”
Had he been in a better mood, Hannah’s high pitched gasp at his cursing would have been almost funny.
“Look squirt, ya best get used to the cursin’, yer gonna hear plenty of it from here on out.”
Hannah looked at him suspiciously. “Mama and Daddy said it’s bad to curse.”
“Mama and Daddy are dead, idiot. Who cares what they said?” Audrey spit out, glaring at the little one with venom. Hannah looked at her with wide-eyed surprise but then that bottom lip started trembling and he knew tears weren’t far behind.
“Hey, don’t talk to your sister like that! She didn’t do anythin’ to ya, no reason to act like that!”
“She’s an idiot and so are you!” Audrey yelled at him, slamming her fists down on her thighs. “I hate all of you!”
That was a change. Few minutes before she was begging him to stay and now she hated him.
“Well, yer stuck with us so suck it up,” Jackson groused.
Her eyes narrowed at his words. “I don’t have to listen to you! You’re not my daddy.”
She unclipped her seat belt, wrenched open the van door and scrambled out.
“Shit. Stay here, Squirt, be back in a sec.”
He jumped out of the van and rounded it, stomping up behind Audrey, who was stalking back towards the road.
“Hey, what the hell ya think yer doin’?” he said, reaching out to grab her by the arm. She whirled on him and tried to wrench her arm out of his grasp.
“Let go of me, you…you…asshole!”
“I ain’t lettin’ ya go. Ya wouldn’t last ten minutes out there on your own.”
“Why do you care?” she spat at him, having stopped her struggle against him. “Me and Hannah aren’t your family.”
“I promised both of ya that I’d look out for ya. I keep my promises.”
All the anger that had sent her tiny frame vibrating disappeared, deflating her like a balloon. The venom in her eyes was replaced with a deep sadness and her face crumpled as her tears began to fall.
“I don’t want to be here,” she whispered. “I just want to go home.”
The sudden flip in her mood had him struggling to think of the right thing to say. He remembered Veronica’s warning to him about dealing with a teen girl and the trouble he’d get himself into. Had to admit she’d been right to think he’d fuck it up. So far, he’d either pissed her off or made her cry, so he was pretty much batting zero right now.
He looked at the building, hoping to see Veronica coming out of it so she could deal with this shit storm. Unfortunately for him, she was nowhere to be seen. He turned back to Audrey and moved his hand from her elbow to her shoulder, patting her, his movements jerky and awkward. Fuck, he was no good at this comforting shit.
But maybe that was good. She didn’t need to hear a bunch of lies about how everything was going to be okay and shit was going to get better. What she needed to hear was the truth, no bullshit.
“Look, I’m gonna be honest, ya got a right to be pissed,” he said, taking a step back so he could crouch down to meet her eye to eye. “What happened to your parents ain’t right but ya can’t change it. There ain’t no home to go back to now. The world’s gone to hell in a handbasket. Means we’ve got a long wait ’til shit gets back to normal, if’n it ever does.”
“Ya been dealt a shit hand, girl, but ya aren’t in it alone. Ya still got your little sister and that’s gotta count for something, yeah? And she’s dependin’ on ya to be strong. Yer her big sister, ya gotta step up to the plate for her. Ya know how scared ya are right now, well, how scared ya think she feels?”
Audrey looked over his shoulder at the van, where Hannah was watching the two of them, tears streaking down her cheeks, palms pressed against the window.
“Christ, look at ‘er, she looks fuckin’ pitiful,” he said with a wave of his hand and Audrey hiccupped a laugh. “I know it ain’t fair to put this on ya but there ain’t no other choice. Ya gotta keep a hold of yourself for her. It’s gonna be hard and yer gonna get mad and frustrated but any time ya feel it comin’ on, ya can yell at me all ya want and I won’t take offence.”
Audrey nodded slowly at his words and then she was throwing herself at him, hugging him tight. He was surprised by the sudden impact, crouching there stiffly as she squeezed him, burying her face in his shoulder. He finally brought an arm up around her shoulders, returning the embrace and shaking his head at the fact that he was in this position at all. Ain’t nobody would have thought that Jackson Webber was capable of being a comforting presence.
“I don’t want to be scared,” she whispered to him, pulling back to swipe her hand under her nose as she sniffled. “I just keep thinking about what those things did to Mama. I don’t want that to happen to us.”
Christ, this kid was breaking his heart. Scared to die and having to depend on the kindness of strangers to keep her alive. The girl had no control over her life and that didn’t seem fair, not when your life was about the only thing you had left in this new world. The girl had a right to have some control over whether she lived or died.
“Somethin’ I want to give ya,” he said and she stepped back so he could stand up. He pulled Gran’s pistol from his belt and held it in his palm. “First things first, this button is the safety. Ya keep it on unless ya plan on pointing it at somethin’ and ya only point it at somethin’ when ya want it dead. This ain’t a toy, it’s what’s gonna keep ya safe, so ya gotta treat it real serious.”
She looked him dead in the eye and nodded her head. “I will.”
She took it from him, testing the weight in her hand while remembering his instructions and keeping the muzzle pointed at the ground.
“We’ll do some target practice later,” he said. “Getcha used to the kickback so ya don’t end up on your ass again.”
She smiled at him. “I didn’t know that would happen. It’s not like that in the movies.”
He snorted and shook his head.
Truer words and all that.
“Come on, ya better go give ya sister a hug before she gives herself another panic attack.”
They went back to the van, Audrey carefully setting down her gun before hugging Hannah, who called her stupid for trying to run away and Audrey laughed at her. The front door of the ranger station opened and Veronica came out, a duffel bag slung over her shoulder.
“Everything okay?” she called out as she approached the van.
“We’re good.” He nodded at the bag she was carrying. “Take it ya didn’t have any problems in there?”
“I found some maps, bottled water, a first aid kit and, more importantly, a walkie talkie.” She pulled the black unit out of the duffel, waving it around in triumph. “The other group we ran into, the ones who have a camp here in the park, they had the exact same walkie. They probably got them here in the park which means if we get in range, I should be able to talk to them. This might be easier than I thought.”
“That’s good,” he replied. “Ya find any food?”
“There were some MREs but I shut them up in one of the lockers. We’ve got enough food in the van for a couple of days. We’re better to save it for pick up when we leave the park. It’ll be more useful out on the road.”
“The only food we got are canned fruits and veggies. No protein. Ya sure ya wanna leave any food behind?”
“You’ve never heard of living off the land?” she asked with a small smile.
“Sure I have but can’t say I’m too experienced in it. You?”
“I’m not a stranger to it. I told you my father was a hunter.”
That didn’t do much to make him feel better about leaving food behind. Veronica laughed at him, reaching out to pat him gently on the chest. “We’ll be okay, don’t worry. Now let’s get this show on the road. You drive, I’ll navigate.”
Far as he’d seen, the woman knew what she’d been doing so he might as well keep following her lead. He took his spot in the driver’s seat and looked back at the girls. Hannah had her head in Audrey’s lap, the older girl stroking her hair gently while the younger one’s eyes drooped with sleep.
“Ya both good now?” he asked and Audrey nodded, offering him a smile that actually reached her eyes this time. “Good. Time for us to get on the road then. It’s gonna be dark soon and we got a lot of ground to cover.”
He turned the key and started the van, backing away from the station and onto the road, ready to head deeper into the park. Time for the adventure to begin.
Subject File # 756
Administrator - What was it like to be separated from your sisters?
Subject - It was hard. I was terrified about what could have happened to them. Leaving Veronica behind was the most difficult decision I’ve ever had to make. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to forgive myself for it.
Their arrival at the camp had everyone coming to a halt, their tasks momentarily forgotten as they watched the police cruiser come to a stop next to the other vehicles. Quinton searched the group for Claudia, spotting her sitting with the children near one of the tents. She bent her head to speak to the little girl, patting her shoulder before heading to meet them with the others.
Malcolm stepped forward, holding his hands up for everyone’s attention. “We tried to look for Travis and Veronica but we ran into some trouble. The locals found us and it brought the infected down on us. We had to leave.”
“Are we safe here?” Janet asked, exchanging fearful looks with the other women.
“They have no idea where we’re camped out,” he told them, “But just in case, we’re going to pack up what we can so we’re ready to bug out if it comes to that.”
The others nodded their agreement and Malcolm offered them a small smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “I don’t want anyone to think that we’ve given up on Travis and Veronica. We haven’t. We’re going to find them. We just have to be smart about it so no one gets hurt.”
When the group broke up, Quinton sought Claudia out.
“We tried to find her, I swear we did,” he explained, “But there were so many infected and then the locals showed up shooting. I didn’t know what else to do. I couldn’t leave you alone. Veronica will understand that. She’d do the same in my position.”
She put her hand over his and squeezed. “Quint, it’s okay. I understand. Besides, Veronica will find us, she always does. Remember when we’d play hide and seek? She was always the best seeker.”
He shook his head, not wanting her reassurances. He knew he was guilty and he didn’t want to be absolved of that.
“I never should have left you two at the sheriff’s station. I should have told them to go to hell and gotten all of us out of there.”
“And then a man would have died.”
“But we’d be together.”
He saw anger flash in her eyes. “Don’t. Mom and Dad taught us better than that. We help people who need it. They died to save us and if we don’t do the right thing, we are doing wrong by their memory.”
He thought about what Janet had told him about Claudia’s actions last night. When a threat had appeared, she had pulled herself out of her fugue state and helped the people who needed it. For the first time, he realized that his little sister had a deep font of inner strength. She had always been the baby, coddled and protected by all of them and Quinton had thought it had made her soft. She was the sweet one, Claudia, but that sweetness surrounded a core of steel that had been forged by the lessons their parents had taught them.
“You’re right,” Quinton said, wrapping an arm around Claudia and pulling her into a hug. “I wasn’t thinking.”
“She’ll find us,” she repeated and he felt her head bob up and down beneath his chin. He wanted to believe her. After everything he had been through, he was desperate to find something to hope in but he couldn’t ignore the facts.
Veronica had accused him of being cynical and she had been right. He was never an optimist like her. He could not ignore the fact that it had been over twenty four hours since they had seen her. She was lost in a town with danger around every corner. As much as she had learned from their father, she wasn’t a superhero. He wished he could just forget reality and fabricate reasons for false hope but it wasn’t him. There was no hope left inside him, not anymore.
Still, as he looked down at his younger sister, he couldn’t tell her. She needed to believe and he couldn’t take that away from her. Not so soon after she came back to him. Until it was time for them to move on from this place, he would let Claudia believe what she needed to believe.
“You’re right, Claudia,” he told her, forcing his voice to resonate with a confidence he didn’t feel. “She’ll do whatever she has to do to find us.”
They stood there for a moment, taking comfort in their shared memories but soon the sounds of the camp invaded once again. He realized that Malcolm was already sorting out a watch schedule while the others had started packing up the camp’s non essentials.