Dead Living (15 page)

Larry gave Samantha a hug she didn't return
and looked back to Garrett and Ray.

“Hey guys!” he called. “Look who managed to
not die!”

Garrett saw her and sneered. He motioned for
Ray to follow, and he obeyed. Sam's posture stiffened slightly as
the large man and his sidekick approached. Aaron picked up on it.
He was behind Sam until then, but he moved up to stand next to
her.

“I can't believe it,” he said. “I thought you
were worm food back in Baltimore.”

“Yeah, well, it's not like you stuck around
to see.”

“Hey, fuck you. The streets were getting
rough. We called for you guys, you didn't show up. As far as I'm
concerned, you were dead.” He looked at Aaron, who hadn't said a
word. “What are you looking at? When did you start picking up
strays, Samantha?”

“You leaving me doesn't
bother me. I would have left you in a second. What
does
bother me is you
being a piece of shit. Anderson and Murphy tried to fuck me, so I
killed them. You pick rapists for all your runs?”

Garrett laughed, Ray joining in right behind
him. That only made Sam more angry. Aaron still said nothing, and
watched both Garrett and Ray closely.

“Can you blame them, Samantha? You're a
gorgeous woman, and I remember that winter outfit you had on. I
would have screwed you too. Hell, you should be flattered.”

He reached out and tried to stroke her hair.
She slapped his hand away. “You don't touch me!”

Garrett reached out and grabbed her hair.
“Oh, you like it rough?”

Larry felt the need to talk, but not act. He
was afraid of Garrett, like everyone else. “Whoa, Garrett.”

Sam's first instinct was to reach for her
knife strapped to her leg, but she didn't need to.

They barely saw Aaron move.

He moved fast and with purpose, like his
father and uncle taught him. A quick kick to the groin, just hard
enough to make Garrett let go of Sam's hair. He circled around and
kicked Garrett in the back of the knee, bringing the larger man
down to his size. Then he snaked an arm around Garrett's throat and
locked the jerk's wrist in a hold his uncle showed him. He wrestled
him to the ground easily. It was like his father told him. A man
can't do much without air.

Everyone was stunned by the display. Ray
finally came back to his senses enough to reach for his holstered
gun. Sam grabbed Larry's gun from his hand and aimed it at Ray's
head.

“Ray, don't move.”

Ray did as he was told.

Sam knew at that moment, that not only did
she trust Aaron completely, but she would also fight for him.

He obviously felt the same way.

Garrett struggled underneath Aaron. “Who the
fuck do you-”

Aaron choked Garrett while applying more
pressure to his wrist. Garrett let out a gasp and felt his face
turning red.

“Shhhhh,” Aaron whispered in his ear. He made
sure only Garrett could hear him. “No words. Just listen. If you go
near Sam, if you even give her too hard of a look, I will kill you.
You hear?”

“When I get up-”

Aaron squeezed harder. Just a little more
pressure, and Garrett's wrist would snap. Garrett struggled to
breathe as drool fell from his mouth.

“It was a yes or no question. Leave Sam
alone, or I will kill you. Now, did you hear me?”

“Yes,” he coughed.

A new voice rang out, near the old parking
lot.

“Hey! That's not how we solve problems
here!”

It was Richardson. He marched toward them.
Aaron didn't realize they had an audience. People walking by in the
distance stopped to see what was happening at the front gate.

Aaron let Garrett up without saying anything
else. The large man rubbed his neck and wrist, not taking an eye
off Aaron. He gestured for Ray, and the two walked away
together.

Sam breathed a sigh of relief and gave Larry
back his gun. She looked at Aaron.

“I can take care of my own fights,” she said.
Then she smiled and gave him a playful punch on the arm. “But shit,
that was nice.”

Aaron didn't smile. He kept an eye on Garrett
until he rounded the corner toward the back of the school. “That's
what friends do. They watch out for each other.”

That surprised her. “You, uh, want to be
friends?” The thought excited her more than it should have.

“We already
are
friends, Sam. I
don't know when it happened, but we're friends.”

She smiled, and was actually happy.

Richardson stopped as he drew closer, then
shook his head. “I should have known Baltimore couldn't kill
you.”

“I would have been dead if it wasn't for
Aaron here. Aaron Thompson, this is Richardson.”

Richardson looked at the
both of them. Sam only wore one shoe, her other foot looking
slightly swollen. She leaned on Aaron slightly, an act itself that
surprised Richardson. Sam simply didn't
lean
on anyone.

Aaron looked unassuming enough. He was lean,
well-built, with a clean shaven head. The bow and arrow on the
ground next to him was a little strange, but Richardson had seen
weirder things.

What caught his eye about the young man was
his expression. Richardson had seen many faces over the years. Most
of the young generation weren't pleasant. He understood why.
Samantha was a perfect example. It was hard to be truly happy in
the world of the dead. Yet Samantha's guest carried himself in a
way that told Richardson that not much bothered him.

“Staying long, young man?”

“I'm not sure yet.”

“Look, I don't like Garrett either, but we
can't just go running around beating up people we don't like.”

“He grabbed Sam. I just told him not to do
that again.”

Richardson raised an eyebrow. “Sam?”

“Only
he
gets to call me that.”

He laughed. “Okay. Listen, Samantha, I'm
sorry, but I couldn't hold onto that teacher's lounge. Garrett told
us all you were dead. So it's already been taken.”

Sam didn't care. She was just happy to be
home. She looked forward to collapsing on her own mattress. “That's
okay. As long as I got my old room.”

He frowned.

“Oh no,” Sam said. “You didn't give my room
away.”

“No, no one claimed the room. It's just
that-“

Sam knew how things
worked. “They took my
stuff
.”

“I'm sorry. You know how it is. Someone
leaves or dies, we're lucky if I can even get their things to the
storeroom before people take them.”

She started hobbling away. She turned around
while still trying to keep moving. “I've gotta go check my room.
Aaron, just stay with Richardson. Don't leave, okay? We'll meet up
later.”

Aaron laughed to
himself.
So much for watching my
back.

Richardson looked the
newcomer up and down while Sam disappeared inside the school. He
had never seen Sam take to anyone,
ever
, and he had known her since her
late teens. What was it about this young man that made him so
special?

“So, you want a tour of the place?”

Aaron shrugged. “Sure.”

*****

Richardson spent the rest of the day walking
with Aaron around Lexington. Aaron hoped it didn't show, but he
wasn't just impressed with Richardson and what they'd accomplished,
he was amazed.

The entire high school and the athletic
fields, as well as the parking lot, was surrounded by a strong
fence. Richardson explained that, sadly, it was put up before the
world ended. That was the sorry state of public schools during the
time. Richardson had lived there since the beginning. Since that
time, they dug up an underground stream and built a spring-house
over it. They put together chicken coops for meat and eggs, along
with a ten foot high smokehouse to preserve meat and fish. They
gathered outdoor bathrooms and lined them up when the plumbing
stopped working. There was a forge in the parking lot for some
simple metal work, along with a large sundial. Aaron watched as a
woman walked through a massive vegetable garden, examining the
crops.

The people worked hard, and Aaron even
received a few simple hellos as he passed by with Richardson. Some
of the ladies gave him looks he wasn't used to.

Lexington seemed nothing short of a
miracle.

The school halls of Lexington were very
efficient. As Richardson showed him the storeroom, he could see
people lived in the old classrooms. They had the makings of a
simple community, which Aaron had only read about in books.

Richardson took him to the garden, where a
nice old woman named Susan Lively gave them each a fresh tomato
right off the vine. It tasted great.

“Let me show you our last stop,” Richardson
said. “Not our most popular place, but you'd better know it's
there.”

They walked to the back of the old athletic
fields, far away from everything else. Aaron saw a hole in the
ground, and was surprised to hear the familiar wails of the
undead.

The hole was twelve feet deep, completely
open, with enough room for about fifteen walkers. They perked up
and reached for Richardson when they saw him.

“We call this the Pit,” he said.

“You keep undead here?”

“Yeah. No one comes back here. We used to
study them, try to figure out what makes them tick, when they'd
decompose. We quit a long time ago, but the Pit's still here. One
day we'll take the young kids out here and teach them about
walkers.”

Young kids,
Aaron thought.
Never
thought I'd see a place where young kids could grow up.

Aaron spotted a walker in the Pit that caught
his attention. It was a female with long white hair. She must have
died exercising, as she wore torn sweatpants and a filthy tee
shirt. The corpse was in good shape. It still had all its limbs and
eyes.

“You'd better cover this thing,” he said,
pointing at Sweatpants. “Or at least put that one down. It's a
thinker.”

“A thinker?”

He explained to Richardson the same way he
did Sam, about how some undead could think. Richardson didn't
believe it, but there was no harm in humoring Aaron.

“We've got some old fencing stored away. I'll
get someone to seal this up.”

As they walked back toward the school, Aaron
decided he had to share his doubts. “So, what's the catch?”

“Catch?”

Aaron waved around him. “This place is
amazing. What's the deal? Are you the dictator? You rule this
place, have sacrifices at night?”

“Amazing? Well, we'll take the compliment.
But Aaron, some people find their way here, and leave right away.
The chicken coops are falling apart. We usually have two vegetable
gardens, so we can let the soil in one get its nutrients back. The
second garden, it's no good, bad soil. The smokehouse? We built it
with as much cinder-block as we could, but one of the guys watching
it fell asleep, and a fire started, so we can't use that right now
either. This whole place needs work. A lot of the people here are
miserable. We had a husband two nights ago kill his wife and
stillborn child. You want to know what the catch is? The catch is
we live in a world where the dead walk around and eat us, making
life just a little difficult.”

Aaron could see the strength in Richardson.
He seemed like a good man.

Richardson looked up at the setting sun.
“You'd better pick out a room before it gets too dark. That is, if
you're planning to stay. You can take any empty room. A lot of the
good ones are already taken, but there's plenty left. Might not
hurt to ask a neighbor if a room is empty or not. There's candles
in the storeroom, just let who's on duty know you need some.
Although you can probably bug anyone, a lot of people carry
candles.”

“Thank you, Richardson. It was a pleasure
meeting you.” Aaron turned to walk away.

“Uh, son, one second before you go. Might not
be any of my business, but can I ask what happened with you and
Samantha in Baltimore?”

He shrugged. “Nothing. She stayed with me a
night, and we fought our way back here. Why?”

“Well, it's just that she's, uh, smiling. I
honestly don't think I've ever seen that.”

“Maybe she's happy to be alive.”

“Yeah. Maybe.”

Aaron nodded. “Again, thanks for
everything.”

Richardson had a good feeling about Aaron. He
hoped the young man decided to stay.

*****

Sam cursed loudly as she slid the mattress
she'd taken from the storeroom into the corner of her room. It took
her all day, but her room was nearly back together. She almost put
a fist through the wall when she walked in earlier. The only thing
the looters left were the curtains on the windows. Maybe it was a
blessing in disguise, as she managed to upgrade a few items, and
get a few new ones.

She found four end-tables of the same size
that she put together to make a long table. She had a nice
selection of clothes, although her favorite sandals were gone. Her
new mattress was bigger, and still wrapped in old plastic. It had
never been used. She found a nice brush that didn't look to be in
terrible shape, and a medium sized mirror she leaned against the
wall on her makeshift long table. She even found an old
lounge-chair and tiny couch that had a few stains, but was very
soft and comfortable.

It needed more work, but it wasn't a bad
start.

The sun was down. Her day of work was coming
to an end.

She took a breath. It was time to rest. She
closed her curtains and shut the door. She started stripping the
clothes off she'd worn since Baltimore. She felt disgusting.

She was down to just her
panties when she heard a voice at the door. Actually, not at the
door, but just
inside
her room.