Ellie smiled thinking of Patrick having to deal with a new girl
and
with Kya. “Well, I’ll bet Kya couldn’t be happier about that. Is Bella cute?”
Shaun said, “I don’t know anybody who is as cute as you.”
She smiled, brushing her hair that wasn’t covered with a bandage. “You know flattery will get you everywhere, Mr. Fox.” She blew a kiss to him as he walked out the door.
Greg ran to catch up to Shaun. “You know damn well she’s hot, Shaun. You aren’t blind.”
“Yeah,” Shaun said, “but I'm not going out of my way to tell Ellie that. It isn’t like she has anything to worry about anyways.”
Greg put his arm around Shaun and said, “So we both know that I could stop giving you a hard time but-“
“But you are single and annoyed about it. I take it Lou still won’t let you take out either of his daughters?”
“Well, he did say that over his dead body I could. Wait, actually no, no he didn’t say that. I was waiting for the offer, figuring fifty-fifty chance worse-case scenario, you know with a bunch of zombies always running around. Not once did he say that though.”
“Keep out of trouble for more than a few months and maybe you’ll get a chance at it. There’s bound to be more girls that we run into right? I mean if this is what is left then there’s not going to be too many offspring running around, at least for a long time.”
Greg said, “You aren’t ready to be a dad just yet there, Shaun?”
“Hell no! I’d like to get to the point first where that is a problem to worry about, and then still not have babies for a long, long time to come. I can’t imagine trying to keep an eye on a kid in all of this. You can’t imagine the Turned would be at all sympathetic towards a child, right?”
“No way, those things are effing evil… they’d take it out.” Shaun said.
Joey said, “You guys got anything better we can talk about? Shaun having kids, and then his kids getting eaten by the dead doesn’t seem like a great talk.”
“Yeah, sure, Joey,” Greg said. “I got something, how about lover boy here can’t make it to his training assignments when he is supposed to.”
“What did I miss, Greg?”
“You missed range duty. There are enough people now that it takes the entire time just running up and down the range making sure that everyone is being safe. Some of those kids still make me nervous; they still think that it's a game, I think.”
Shaun said, “Well, the first time that those things make their way here and take out that joke of a fence they will-”
Joey cut in quickly, “Uh, guys, you really think those things are coming here? You don’t think this place is safe anymore?”
Shaun instantly felt like an ass. “Yeah, Joey, this place is still safe. Honestly, there are probably few places safer in the state. I doubt we ever would have lasted a year at Andy’s place. Not that I wouldn’t mind having my own room and the feel of a real house to sleep in.”
Greg said, “What, you don’t like sharing your personal space with however many kids we’re up to?”
“No, Greg, there’s definitely nights that I could use some privacy. God knows it wouldn’t break my heart not to hear you snoring at night.”
“I would like my own room too,” Joey added. “I don’t like hearing people’s moans when they have nightmares. When I can’t sleep at night and I’m looking around with flashlights people look like they’re in pain. They look scared to, and sometimes I go over and wake them up because I think they’d be happier not dreaming that.”
Greg said, “What happens then?”
Shaun answered before Joey could. “A lot of the time it isn’t any better and that's when they start balling their eyes out.”
Greg said, “And how do you know all that?”
“Because, I don’t like to sleep either,” Shaun said. “I do better catching a couple short naps in the day. Just another reason I’d rather have my own room.”
Greg whispered just before running off. “Hey, if you closed the deal with Ellie, maybe you wouldn’t need your own space so bad at night there, Fox.”
Shaun prominently held up his middle finger for Greg and the three of them raced the rest of the way to the office to meet Aslin and Clary.
Chapter 2
Aslin stared out the window checking his watch. “It doesn’t matter what time I tell those kids to show up, they aren’t ever early. I mean you would think having a clock in every single damn building would be enough to make them be on time. There isn’t a lack of places that they can find out what time it is. Do we need to go rob a watch store so everyone on base will have one less excuse?”
Clary was leaning back and in no hurry for the kids to arrive. “I’m not in a hurry. It isn’t like Shaun hasn’t been preoccupied with Ellie lately. She gets out today, ya know.”
“Yeah, but she still needs to take it easy. I already spoke to Lou, so if we end up leaving today or tomorrow she’s not going with. Last thing we need is for her doing something she thinks she can and then she gets hurt or worse. You remember what happened with Shaun last time?” Aslin said.
“Well, it has been a whole two months, Aslin, but yeah, if what you are asking about is if I remember Shaun going off with a storage closet worth of blood bags and taking out an insane amount of the Turned by baiting them, then yes I have a small recollection of it.”
“It was still dangerous, Clary, and the last thing he needs is the motivation to go do something like that again.”
“Motivation? Are you kidding me? I’ve never met anyone who hates those things more than Shaun. He has always felt responsible for what his dad did, I’m pretty sure if we ever win this thing that he will be the one pulling the final trigger to put them down. He is a long term survivor; if he can refrain from doing anything else ignorant with grenades on ice then I’d say he’ll be around for some time to come.”
“Right, I don’t think he’ll be doing anything like that for a while, Aslin. Damn hard to do that since the spring thaw finally hit. I won’t feel quite as bad about sending anyone else packing if the weather stays like this. I could handle these temps year around. That frozen tundra shit when Greg decided it was optimal time to leave sucked. It makes me wonder if those who stayed in Iowa were quitters.”
“Yeah, I’m sure the whole population of settlers were quitters,” Aslin said. “It couldn’t have had anything to do with them seeing the soil. We’d be smart to get some supplies to start taking advantage of this land. There’s plenty of farmland across the field and surrounding the base that we could have a hell of a crop if we wanted to this year. We could get fresh vegetables and freeze them. Imagine an endless supply, even the people who don’t think they need to learn about firearms could contribute. There’s little as important as food.”
Clary struck a match, lighting and cupped it around one of his cigars, thinking about it. “So, Aslin wants to be a farmer huh?”
Aslin patted his mid-section, which had shrunk considerably over the last year of constant training of the youths. “No, that isn’t it at all, Clary. But I want to keep the option to eat open. Probably would be smart if we rounded up what cattle we could and stick them somewhere. I don’t see any reason why the dead should be able to eat them. There are a lot of things we should be doing. Training these kids is smart and it isn’t ever going to be something I regret. But shit has hit the fan and instead of watching it slide down the walls, maybe we should start embracing the fact that there are plenty of resources available. Those lights flickering every so often don’t help me sleep. I know that we aren’t wasting electricity but it doesn’t take an engineer to know that it’d be smart to have more than one building running green.”
Clary let a long stream of smoke rise up in circles. “So you are saying the next trip we take out is going to be to get supplies to become farmers. We want cattle that we aren’t quite sure how to deal with just yet. You’d like some solar panels, and then I’m guessing maybe a few seeds and what not, is that about it?”
“Yeah, and I don’t think if we got a few tillers for making the land ready for planting that we would regret it. Some sort of PVC pipe for making an irrigation system wouldn’t be stupid. We still have another month or so before we need to worry about planting anything.”
“How the hell would you know all of this? I’m pretty confident that we’ve been out on missions, and not home planting corn and beans, when prime planting season has been around in the past.”
“The internet still works, Clary. I’ve been researching and printing everything off that I can in hard copy. Mostly because I have no idea when it will stop.”
Clary said, “You looking for any survivors on there by chance?”
“They’re out there, but it seems like about time you find them you see that they haven’t posted any updates in a very long time. Which means they’re either dead or gave up on someone coming to save them.”
“So then you’d rather make a go of it here for the long haul than try and rid the rest of the land of these things? Good luck telling that plan to Shaun. At some point that kid is going to be the one that everyone looks up to. They’re already telling stories about the kid like he is some superhero, you know unable to be caught or killed by the Turned. He figured out the idea that everyone is banking on. He’s the reason why there’s so many donations. Everyone is hoping that it will end with the dead in the streets.” Clary said.
“I think he will see the good in what I’m saying. Even if at some point he does leave, at least he will have something to come back to. The people that are saved are going to need a community. They’re going to want to have a reason to come back to something better, Clary.”
“People saved aren’t going to give a shit if we have plants and food. They’re going to care that we can keep them safe and that we can offer to keep them alive. I can’t see having food to offer to them is going to hurt anything though.” Clary said.
“Holy shit!” Aslin said. “Did we just agree on something without butting heads?”
“Yeah, that just means I'm wearing on you, it was bound to happen eventually.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t want to think that by the slimmest of chances that I’m rubbing off on you and you are finally starting to use the brain that God gave you, Clary.”
“Aslin, that would be terrible, wouldn’t it?”
“You with a good head on your shoulders could be scary. Who knows what genius things you might think of,” Aslin responded.
Clary took one more drag off his cigar. He only allowed so many puffs before putting them out. He knew that the supply he had was impressive but he wanted to ensure that he would never want for one and that was enough reason to put limits on his smoking. Clary was confident that he would find a much braver way to die in the coming years that the health risks were the least of his concerns.
Clary said, “The only issue that I have with getting that stuff right now is one thing-“
“And that is?”
“Don’t interrupt, Aslin, it makes you an asshole. No, like I said, I don’t hate the idea; it actually makes sense which is a bit terrifying. What worries me is that we’re going to leave a base unattended knowing that we have some crazy guys that are dying to get what we have and do whatever they need to do to get it. Or at least that seems to have been the impression that Shaun said he had gotten from them.”
“So what do you want to do, Clary, wage a war?”
“I’d like to put the idea to rest before it ever becomes an issue. I say that we take them out. We leave nothing of them to come after us after we do some more in-depth reconnaissance. God knows if they knew where we were that they would be watching us, or worse.”
Aslin was nodding his head side to side trying to decipher how he felt about it. “If we want to go and start surveillance on them to know if we should be worried or not that is fine with me. What worries me more, though, is that we could wait forever and never see those people. There’s nothing saying they ever figured out what happened to their friends or know where we live.”
“Oh, okay, so we’re going to do hypothetical situations,” Clary said, “You must think they’re complete morons, that when they saw the bullet holes peppering the truck that they weren’t from bullets? Is that what you are trying to say?”
“No one would miss that display of holes in a car. What I’m saying is that we’ve waited this long, what is it going to hurt to wait a few more days. You give me a few more days so we can gather some supplies. It’s been a few months and they haven’t been an issue yet. Don’t you think they would have attacked or tried to take the gates if they knew where we were, Clary?”
“I have no idea, maybe they’re watching us now and we don’t even know it. Maybe they’re waiting for us to leave so they can storm our gates, kill those that don’t know how to take care of themselves, and then take our shit. What do you have to say about that?”
“That you couldn’t be more negative if you tried sometimes, Clary. Did you want to bring that up to the kids, you think that would be a good idea, or should we keep our concerns to ourselves? Maybe the best thing to do would be to bus everyone from base around every time we leave because something might happen.”
“I'm being rational, Aslin. You kill the threat and you have none. You let them live, you realize that you have an aggressive adversary and you just let them stay around and ignore them, then you’re going to have a very serious issue on your hands.”
“So we storm their gates after some recon? Let me ask if we all go out to check the place out, who is going to take care of our gates?”
“So, Aslin, are you saying that either way we’re leaving ourselves vulnerable? So even though we have the same issue going on, you think it’ll be easier if we do it your way first because you are hesitant about how long shit is going to last, and you’ve been surfing on the internet for too long and made yourself bat-shit crazy?”
“Pretty much, Clary. Can we just agree to disagree on this and go get the shit? I have been thinking about this since Shaun and them went out to get stuff. There are so many buildings that are more than likely still packed with supplies. I think there has to be. This hit so fast, especially in Iowa, that I’m sure there is a ton of stuff left, people barely had time to pack anything. The only thing that helped Shaun and his crew was the fact that his dad was the one who invented it and he was one of the first to have to deal with it. He wasn’t ignorant and knew to get the fuck out of dodge when things went to hell.”
“Fine, we'll do it your way but I'm not kidding when I say once we have your little fun to do jobs back here and ready to assemble that we stake out that gated community they’re holding up in. We either have words with them, or we take them out, but we do not just wait hoping that they’re going to be okay and not come after us.”
“Wow, Clary, you actually want to give them a chance to talk? You must be getting old. I figured you’d want to blow the gates up and head straight in.”
“I would if it wasn’t for having to worry about the innocent. How do we know how they ended up in there? They don’t deserve to die just because some assholes might have taken over the place.”
Aslin was about to say something else when the teens came through the door but quickly closed his mouth. They weren’t out of breath but they were breathing heavier than usual. Clary saw them smiling and said, “Shaun Fox smiling. Are you okay, Shaun?”
Shaun shrugged, “Ellie gets out of the hospital today and then she gets to come back to where she belongs. Yeah, I think I got something to smile about. You have a problem with that?”
Clary held up his hands in surrender, “No, but it’s nice to see that you have the ability to still do it. You’re always so serious all the time.”
“Yeah, well, there’s quite a bit of shit to be serious about. I'm good though. What did you guys want to talk about?” Shaun asked.
Aslin sat down tossing his cap on a desk. “A lot, Shaun. Now that Ellie is out, I'm hoping that we will be able to get your full attention.”
“You always have my full attention, Aslin, and so do the kids on the range, and people who want to know about the Turned, and others that want to know about everything else that I have absolutely nothing to do with.”
Aslin held up his hands nodding slowly. “I get it, I get it. We’re all happy she’s getting out, Shaun, I mean that. We were thinking about going on a run.”
Greg who was always ready to get off base immediately perked up. “Where are we going to go?”
“I was thinking, or farmer Aslin over there was thinking, that maybe we should go pick up some supplies to make this place a little greener. We both have to agree that eventually food is going to be a problem. It doesn’t matter how many cans of corn we have, or steaks for that matter; it's going to run out eventually. Even if we could get another six to eight months on what we have, it would be smart to gather what we need now before it gets to the point that we aren’t able to safely do it. Right now we aren’t going out to do stupid shit because we’re starving. This is simply prepping.”
Shaun held up a hand not waiting to be called on. “Wait, what do you mean about going to get some supplies? I thought today was going to be talking about the blood bags, or the others in that community?”
Clary looked to Aslin to let him speak. It was almost as if he had a deja vu moment which made him smile at Aslin. Aslin gave him a discrete middle finger and said, “Okay, we have talked about that already, Shaun. Trust me when I say this, bud, we aren’t forgetting about them. I think that we have plenty of time before they’re really going to be a threat. It had almost been a month, we haven’t had any further issues with them. With every day that we get more blood the supplies that we need are even greater.”