Read Crusade (Eden Book 2) Online
Authors: Tony Monchinski
Crusade (Eden Book 2) (31 page)
“I don’t know. Maybe he was having a delusion. Maybe he had built up a delusion. Maybe he thought Mickey was someone else. We’ll do what we can for him here. The good news is we’ve stockpiled lots of different medications.”
“The bad news?”
“No one’s making these medicines any longer.”
“Yet.”
“
Yet
. Exactly.”
“You know they invited us to this party or whatever tonight?”
“Yes. I think you should go. I think you should all go, including Buddy.”
Bear looked at Singh.
“It won’t hurt him to be around people. He can’t lay in that bed down the hall all day and night.”
“That guy, Michael, with the plague? He’s going to die one day, right?”
“We’re all going to die one day,” Singh said. “It’s the way of all flesh. Let me reassure you, we’re doing everything we can for your friend, and we’re going to ensure the remainder of Julie’s pregnancy is as stress-free as possible.”
“Thanks, Doctor Singh.”
“It’s Kip, Jimmy, or do you prefer Bear?”
“I haven’t been called anything else in such a long time.”
“Well, you think about it and let me know. And like I said before, if you decide you might like someone to talk to, I can help you with that too. Introducing you to someone to talk to, I mean. It doesn’t have to be me. God knows I have enough of my own issues.”
He smiled. “Thanks, Kip.”
Julie knocked on his bedroom door in the dorm and leaned her head in. “You coming with us?” Her stomach was so large she could not wear the .357 holstered anywhere on her waist. Instead she had tucked the .380 at her lower back beneath her sweater and jacket.
“I don’t think so.” He was stretched out across the bed, his lower legs hanging off the end. “You guys go ahead without me and have a good time.”
“Bear.” She shook her head, entered the room, and sat on the bed where he lay. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.”
“Why don’t you want to go?”
“I don’t know. The idea of a party…”
“It’s not a
party
party. I mean, I don’t think anyone’s going to ask you to sing karaoke. It’s Tris and her girlfriend and a bunch of their friends, just saying hello, welcoming us, getting to know us. No one’s going to ask you to dance.”
The corners of his mouth rose.
“What if no one wants to dance with me?” he asked.
“Then I’ll dance with you.”
“What’s the doctor say about the baby?”
“The baby is fine. Malden asked me if I wanted to know if it was a boy or a girl…”
“And?”
“And I didn’t want to know.”
“Why not?”
“I guess I like pleasant surprises, and, well, this will be the first pleasant surprise in a long time.”
Julie touched her stomach.
“You’re getting big.”
“You should see my belly button.”
“Innie become an outtie?”
“Exactly.” She smiled. “You know, I think I have some idea what you’re feeling. I mean, it was pretty bleak out there…on the road. There were times I really didn’t think we would make it. And when Buddy started losing it… Now we’re here. It all seems, I don’t know, too good to be true.”
“I don’t know if it’s too good to be true,” Bear said. “I just don’t know if I can deal with it. With people.”
“I feel the same way. But, one of the things I know, I can’t sit in my room here all night. I’ll think of Harris…”
“He was a good man.”
“If he could see what was happening…what was happening with Buddy…”
“They’re trying to help him, Julie. I was talking to one of the doctors about it earlier. Buddy must have had some major clinical issues we didn’t know about.”
“I know. Harris always said Buddy had his past…”
He nodded.
“I want to ask you a favor.”
“Go ahead.”
“Be the godfather to my child.”
“Julie, I…” He sat up on the bed, the springs creaking beneath his frame.
“It would mean a lot to me. It would have meant a lot to Harris.”
“Wow.” He tried to get his head around the idea.
“If anything ever happens to me, a godparent would be responsible for—”
“No, no, I know what a godfather does, Julie. It’s just, I don’t know where I am anymore, with God I mean. I don’t know what I believe any more. I don’t even know if I think there is a God or gods or anything, other than this…”
“Your religious belief or disbelief, or whatever, that doesn’t matter to me. I’m asking you to help me raise my baby, and if something ever happens to me—”
“
Nothing
will ever happen to you.” He swung his legs over the side of the bed and put his feet on the floor. “Not while I’m around.”
“Then be the godfather of my child.”
“I don’t know what to say, I’m…”
“Say you’re honored and you’d be happy to be godparent to this kid.”
“I
am
honored.” Bear beamed in a way Julie had never seen him smile before. “And there’s no greater happiness I can imagine than for me to be godfather to your child, to Harris’ child.”
“Thanks.” She stood up. “Your responsibilities start now. So get your boots on and let’s go. I need a big strong man to lean on, make sure I don’t slip outside.”
“Okay, give me two minutes.” He patted his bald head. “I’ve got to fix my hair.”
“What’s he doing here?” Steve asked Lauren and Sonya.
A group of them were in a big carpeted room of the recreation center. Buddy, freshly bathed and dressed but still looking mostly out of it, was seated in the center of the room on the floor. A bunch of little children were playing duck-duck-goose around him.
“Who?” Sonya asked.
“One flew over the coo-coo’s nest over there, that’s who.”
“Singh and Malden thought it’d be good for him to get out and be around people,” Lauren said.
“Singh brought him here?”
“Yeah.”
“Then Singh can keep an eye on him. Does that guy even know he’s here?”
“Sure he does.” Singh walked up to them. “We’re trying him out on some new meds and we’ll see how they work.”
“I don’t know,” Steve said. “Is it safe to have him around children?”
Several of the smaller kids splayed their palms atop Buddy’s kinky head and ran around his seated form.
“We’re all here, Steve,” Sonya said. “What’s he going to do? And if you’re worried about the mentally ill, what’s up with your roommate?”
Chris was in a small group over on the other side of the room, decked out in his arm bands and face paint. He hadn’t taken them off since the day he rescued Steve at the convoy. Every time he showered he reapplied the paint.
There was a stereo playing in another corner of the room.
“Hey, he just bit Victor,” Steve said.
“Very funny.” Sonya, rolled her blind eyes. “Not.”
“I mean, you should have seen this guy going at it with those zombies,” Isaak told a bunch of men and women. “You ever seen someone chainsaw zombies before?”
“Son of a bitch,” Chris said. “I knew he was bad just lookin’ at him.”
“He tougher than Tris?” Danny asked. His twin sister, Hayden, scoffed.
“Tougher than Tris?” Isaak said. “I don’t know about that, but he was tearing limbs off those zeds like, like, like—”
“Who’s tougher than me?”
Tris sauntered over with her arm around Eva’s shoulder. She wore her Red Kangaroo fur jacket.
“The big guy.”
Sonny nodded at the four men and women who had just walked in. He held his daughter’s hands while she walked up his thighs and flipped over backwards to stand upright.
“Bear,” Biden said.
“Bear,” Tris said. “Yeah, he
is
a tough one.”
“Not as tough as you, baby,” Eva said, looking up into her scarred lover’s face.
“You know what the statistical probability of you ever running into your friends again was, Biden?” Hayden asked him.
“No. Do you?”
“No, but it’s got to be enormous.”
“They’re still down there,” Biden said, thinking of others. “In the city.”
“Tris, we gotta go down there,” Isaak said. “Rescue those people. Bring them back up here.”
“Hell yeah,” Danny said. “Time to bring the pain to Zed himself.”
“No you don’t, Tris,” Eva said. “You need to stay right here with me.” She leaned over and kissed her woman on the cheek.
A few feet away from them Chris elbowed Brent, none too subtly, causing Brent to blush and ask, “What do you want man?”
“I’m thinking about that,” Tris said, ignoring the two men and Eva. “But tonight let’s try and have some fun.”
“Damn, that woman looks like she’s ready to pop,” Hayden noted of Julie.
The newcomers were welcomed and introduced to everyone. Bear noticed how people eyed him, somewhat warily, somewhat respectfully. He stayed close to Julie while some of the women talked to her.
“When are you due?”
“Doctor Malden says in about five weeks.”
“Do you know if it’s going to be a boy or a girl?”
“You’ll love it here. This is a great place to give birth. Mary just had her baby three weeks back and everything went fine…”
“Hey, big man.” Chris walked over to Bear with three cans of beer hanging from their plastic webbing. “You want a beer?”
“No, thanks.”
“Daddy, what’s this man’s name?” Torrie asked her father.
“Introduce yourself, sweetie,” Sonny prodded her.
“I’m Torrie. What’s your name?”
“Bear.”
“Bear? That’s a funny name.”
“Yeah, I guess it is. Why don’t you call me Jimmy?”
“Okay, Jimmy, look what I can do.” Torrie walked up her father’s thighs and flipped herself over in a flash of skirt and little flowered purple panties.
“
Wow
,” Bear said, “that’s cool.”
“Watch me do it again—watch me do it again!”
“Hey man,” Chris said to him, “let me be blunt with you. You ever think of being a professional wrestler?”
“Once or twice, a long time ago.”
