Apocalypse Aftermath (29 page)

Jessica leaned back and looked into Candice’s eyes.  “I know it might not make a lot of sense right now, but it’s important.  You know how hard being brave is, right?”

“It’s hard.” Candice nodded.  “
It sucks.”

Jessica chuckled.  “It is, and it does.  You’re so right.  And that’s why it’s important for you to not ask other people the kind of question you just asked me.  Being brave is hard for everyone, and not everyone is as good at it as you are.  Some of them are only a little brave, or are only acting brave when really they’re so scared they’re not brave at all.  Can you think of why it’s dangerous for someone who isn’t brave to be around?”

Candice pondered for a moment.  “Because they’re scared, and they’ll . . . because they’ll be so scared they can’t think good?”

“I’m so proud of you.” Jessica nodded.  “That’s exactly right.  When people aren’t brave, when they’re scared, they sometimes don’t make good decisions.  There are all kinds of bad decisions they might make, and some of them could be dangerous ones.  People do dangerous things when they’re scared.  And sometimes, when someone is really scared but is trying to act brave, and you make them think you know they’re not brave, they make
really
dangerous decisions.  Does that make sense?”

“A little.”

“I promise you, with all my heart, with all my love, I will do whatever it takes to keep you safe.”  Jessica tipped Candice’s chin up a little higher with a couple of fingers and looked right into her eyes.  “
Whatever
it takes.” she repeated.  “Right now, I think that means we should stay here.  If that changes, then we’ll go do something else.  But you have to trust me to figure all that out, because while you’re getting really big, you’re still little.  My job is to figure things out so you don’t have to, so you can finish being little and become big.”

“I trust you.” Candice said, and Jessica had to dig deep through the morass of pain and loss that was muddling up everything inside her to keep from breaking down.  The
absolute conviction in the girl’s voice was terrifying.  Jessica found herself needing to hold on to her emotions and her doubts as hard as she could to make sure she believed she was up to the challenge.

“So, to answer your question, I don’t know.” she said quietly, not just yet trusting her voice to not crack into sobs if she tried to speak louder.  “But I’m paying attention, and one way or another I’ll figure it out.  In the meantime, you and I need to stay here.  We’re going to do what we can to help everyone keep this place safe, because that’s the best way for us to be safe.  Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Okay.” Jessica agreed.  “Now hop down so I can finish getting dressed.  Dr. Morris needs to get back in here to gather some things so he can help hurt people in town, and he can’t do that until I’m dressed.”

Candice slid off the examination table, and Jessica resumed trying to get back into her slacks.  As she fought with her bad leg, she focused on the simple things.  Candice was safe.  Everything was okay at the moment.  That was what was important.  And what she needed to keep herself strong.

“How many again?” Bobo asked.

Darryl shrugged
, glancing around the back yard briefly before returning his attention to the Dogz leader.  The splintered fence boards had been replaced, and he saw some activity going on in the barn as people worked on organizing the stuff stored inside.  “Said a couple thousand.”

“Bunch of zombies waiting to happen.” Big Chief muttered.

“Maybe not.” Bobo said thoughtfully.  “Mr. Soul say what news there still is ain’t had too much to say about anybody else just up and turning biter.”

“News mostly rumor by now.”

“Maybe so, but we ain’t had no one else turn since Saturday neither.”

“Yet.”

Tank spoke suddenly.  “Bro, you need to lay off that negative shit.”

Big Chief eyed the bigger man, an annoyed look on his face.  “Ain’t negative if it true.”

“We don’t know if it is.” Bobo interjected.  “We gonna stay careful, but we can sort of keep an eye on what happening over in Watkinsville.  See if they have any more problems.  That won’t be no rumor, it’ll be good intel.”

Darryl nodded, still watching EZ and Vivian working on what Bobo was calling ‘the big map’.  It was just another road map from the gas station next to 78, but EZ and Vivian were updating it from all the other maps as the scouting teams returned and handed theirs over.

Jody had found pens and markers in a few different colors, and a notebook, amid the mass of mixed miscellanea the Dogz had pulled in so far.  The map was getting information laid in using a color code EZ and Vivian were creating as they went; EZ marking the map while Vivian added more detailed information in the little spiral bound notebook.

Everyone on Bobo’s leadership list
– except Mr. Soul, who was still covering whatever the televisions and radios could still offer – was gathered around one of the folding tables out on the patio.  The light in the clubhouse was enough to walk around in, but not much good for anything else.

And with the sun up, the temperature in the stone building was climbing rapidly.  Especially with the windows all boarded up against zombies.  It was more comfortable outside, though Darryl made a point of glancing around at the fence a couple times a minute.

“We ain’t gonna even consider it?” Jody asked.

“Consider what?” Darryl said.

“I don’t know, working with them or something?”

“People is better than zombies, but they all a risk.” Bobo said in a level voice.

“Bobo, we can’t just sit here behind the fence forever.” she told him.

“We ain’t.  That’s how we found out about Watkinsville.”

Jody’s face took on a petulant expression.  “You know what I mean.”

“Yeah, and so do you.  I been around in places where things start breaking down.  People get funny, get greedy.”

“Like we ain’t?”

“We ain’t running around killing folks and stealing their shit.”

“Bobo, we doing plenty of—” she began, but Darryl leaned forward and slashed his hand across in front of himself.

“No, we ain’t.  We taking stuff that laying around unclaimed.”
he said firmly, stepping on his impulse toward anger.  The Dogz weren’t malcontents or criminals, no matter what anyone not in the club might think when they saw a big pack of black bikers wearing club patches on their vests.  That she’d even say something that suggested they were offended him.

“Same difference.”

“No, it ain’t.” he shook his head.  “Kicking in the door to a house without nobody living there anymore not the same as ripping off folks who staying there.  Or pointing guns and telling them to hand it over.”

“We ain’t thieves.” Bobo said.  “Or hooligans.
”

“I am.” EZ interjected
, grinning broadly as Jody scowled at him.

Tank burst out laughing, and Bobo was momentarily stymied.  Darryl was still annoyed, but even he was smiling a little as he answered.

“You was, and even then you never hurt no one or ran around waving guns at folks.”

“Stealing is stealing.”

“Bro, you never took shit someone couldn’t spare.” Darryl pointed out.  “You said you always lifted new cars in good neighborhoods that had insurance.”

“And anyway, it don’t matter no more.  EZ ain’t done anything since this shit started the rest of us ain’t; and the shit he did before
only helping us keep from fumbling around trying to get food and stuff back here where we need it.”

“Yeah, can’t carry much on a bike.” Big Chief nodded.

“Right.” Bobo said, turning his attention back to Jody.  “We trying to survive, not fuck folks over.  We paid for a bunch of stuff on Friday didn’t we?”

“And then grabbed a few truckloads of shit Friday night.”

“After zombies started eating folks.” Bobo said, gesturing at Darryl as he opened his mouth.  Darryl sat back a little and started a cigarette as Bobo went on.  “And we didn’t take nothing from someone else.  There a difference between getting there first and holding someone up who beat us there.”

Jody took a deep breath, still frowning.  “I just saying we gonna need friends if this go on like it looking it gonna.”

“We got friends.” Darryl said quickly, waving around at the people in and around the patio.  Dogz lounging around, women and children scattered among them.  “And it already hard enough to keep everyone going.  Last thing we need is to hitch ourselves with a couple thousand more who gonna need stuff.

“I ain’t saying we should move over there.”

“We’re not.” Bobo said firmly.

“I know.  But hands useful when there work that need doing.” Jody said, her eyes flashing a little.

“Like we don’t know that?” Tank said.  “I ain’t see none of the women sweating out here with us when we put up the fence.”

“And I ain’t seen none of the men folk helping in the kitchen neither.” she snapped back.

“Everybody shut the fuck up.” Bobo commanded, his voice very firm.  “We staying here.  We gonna keep on like we are now.  We doing our own thing, and so long as folks leave us be, there ain’t no problem.  Ain’t no one coming to live with us here, but ain’t no need for us to go making sure everyone left breathing think they can just show up and borrow a fucking cup of sugar whenever the fuck they want.  DJ right, we got our own to look after.

“There a difference between taking care of ourselves and being bad neighbors.  Ain’t no problem with Watkinsville or any of the other folks the Dogz done spotted nearby.  Unless they go to start messing with us, but that a whole other problem entirely. 
They all just trying to survive, same as us.  And we go making out like we ready to help, we gonna get caught out by something that ain’t get done cause we running around being helpful.”

Jody was still frowning, but she shrugged and just gazed at Bobo steadily.  Darryl exhaled a cloud of smoke, feeling like he wanted to go get a joint from Needles.  It was one thing to have shit to do, but he was starting to figure out being one of the people deciding which shit got done in what order was a lot harder than just doing it.

“Good news is y’all found a lot of useful stuff just waiting for someone to come by and get.” Bobo continued as if everything was fine.  “Bad news is no one found any rigs, either tanker or box trailer.  We gonna have to table it for a couple of days while we work on these other things, but we still gonna need to keep looking.  We ain’t gonna make out so well if we can’t keep ahold of gas.”

“What we gonna do with a bunch of construction shit?” Shooter asked.

“Build stuff.” Tank grinned.

“That ain’t what I was asking bro.”

“We get a power shovel in here, and we can put in a trench that’ll keep anyone from getting up on the fence.” Bobo answered as Tank just kept grinning.  “Won’t take but a couple hours of work, tops.  Zombie or human, on foot or riding wheels, ain’t no one getting past a six foot trench.”

“Doing it by hand would take days and wear us out.” Tank told Shooter.  “Probably more like a week.  Shoveling clay sucks.”

“Don’t ask.” Darryl said as Shooter’s face showed confusion.  “We gonna have a moat.  Just deal with it.”

Shooter transferred his look to Darryl, read his expression, then shrugged.  “Okay, so we gonna dig us a moat.”

“For starters.” Bobo said.  “I learned how to do a water filter setup back in the Army, and we can put one in off the lake that’ll make sure we ain’t got grit and shit floating around in any water we take out of it.”

“We got water.” Big Chief objected.

“For now.” EZ said without looking up from the maps.  “Power out, all the pumps at the water plants dead now.  Soon as the towers feeding the system all empty, taps go dry.”

“Fucking great.”

Bobo nodded.  “We got the lake.  Filter trench help a lot.  Plus if we can’t get our hands on any damn box trailers, we can see about putting in some outside basements for more storage.”

“How that gonna keep anything we put out there?” Jody asked.  “One rain and it all turn to mud.”

“Roof, especially one on the ground, ain’t hard to build.  Take less material too.  If it come to it, we can waterproof us some storage inside the fence that won’t be in the way.”

“Lot of work for one fucking backhoe.” Shooter observed.  “How much gas that gonna cost us.”

“Probably twenty, maybe thirty gallons a day.” Tank answered.  “Diesel.  But that only if we end up running it all day.  The kind of digging we talking about ain’t gonna be all that hard to finish.  It’ll go quick.”

“Great.”

“We can swing that.” Darryl said.  “Especially if it gonna help out with security.”

“Trenching around the fence won’t take but a few hours.  We ain’t doing anything to the hole, like putting in pipes or anything, so it’ll go quick.”
Tank repeated.

“Who gonna run the thing?” Big Chief asked.  “Oh, I guess that you Tank?”

“I can manage it.  Gimmie a few minutes to get settled and no sweat.”