Surviving The Aftermath (Book 1): The Dead Linger (31 page)

A couple days passed, Brian and Tom stayed in the dorm like rooms that were built in the store with a few others that had yet to move into the apartments. They were slowly adjusting, plus Tom really had nowhere else to go. Vikki wasn’t speaking to him, or some of the guys who were once his friends. He couldn’t really blame them, he’d left, they’d moved on. It looks like they were surviving without him, moving into the apartments, getting that wall set up. He heard about the farming now too. He had been stuck in limbo, and they kept going. He heard whimpering from the other room. Brian had been having nightmares since they arrived, he wasn’t sure what to do or what it was from. Maybe seeing that guy get killed, or about being trapped in that place, he wasn’t sure, he would just have to go over and wake the kid up to help. Or he hoped it was helping. Mumbling himself back to sleep Brian laid his head back down. Tom was restless and went out to walk around. It was early evening still, people were out taking care of things for the night. He saw new watch towers had been built and the older ones modified. A couple stop and stared from what they were doing as he walked by, he was still rocking a beard and long hair, but at least he was clean. Even though the beard wasn’t really bushy nor the hair really long he felt like it helped shield him from the others. He was making his second slow circuit around the lumber area when he spotted Jill. He wasn’t sure what she was doing, but she was working and sweating. He stared at her, expecting to feel that familiar rage has he had not so long ago. He thought again about her killing his daughter and her bloody violent end. But the raw hatred didn’t come like it used to. Maybe he’d learned to forgive or maybe it just wasn’t as important for him to have revenge anymore. Just like his wife had said he would happen. Damn it. Why did she always have to be right? He wanted to leave, he wasn’t ready for this confrontation, but Jill stood to stretch and spotted him. They made eye contact and she bent back down to work again. Tom laughed in his head, stink’n jerk, she wanted to avoid me as much as I wanted to avoid her. Reluctantly and without a plan he headed over to her. With her head still down he cleared his throat to get her attention.

She still ignored him, kept on moving boxes and packages around, he noticed her struggling with her one arm.

“Do we need to talk?” He asked her.

“Nope.”

“What did you do to your arm?”

“Nothing?” Was her curt reply.

“Fine then.” He turned and paused. “Really, we don’t need to say anything to each other?” She stopped and stood and looked at him. “You said everything you had to say to me the day you left. Remember? No? Well I do.” She took her gloves off and starting walking away. What did he say to that?

“You might want to talk to Casey though. He’s in the hospital.” She turned back around.

Hospital? When did they get that, and why was Casey there?

“What happened?” He hollered after her but she ignored him. He did need to talk to Casey and Vikki. Aside from his girls, they were the other two most important people in the world to him. When he’d been at the Hell Hole he’d lay awake at night wondering what they were doing. Wondered if they’d missed him. Kept thinking back about the good times they had managed to have through the scary times. In the morning, I’ll find Casey in the morning.

“So what do you think?”

“That fucker Jeff was right.” There were several men, shrouded in the darkness of night, parked in several cars, blocks away from an outside strip mall that included a Menards, Pick-n-Save, dollar store, a Marshall’s and Kohl’s. They surveyed the area, seemed to be pretty zombie free, expect for the occasional creeper roaming. They watched people seemingly patrol up on the roofs with weapons.

“What’s our next move?” A voice came from the backseat.

“We head back to camp, gather as many soldiers (he really meant people forced by gunpoint into vehicles) as we can and see if they won’t be hospitable enough to open there doors to us.” Luke liked this set up. The buildings looked solid, the fencing and barbed wire in front. He liked everything about this area.

“Think how much we can expand here.” Another man added.

“Totally, let’s test their strength, we’ll get them some company.” He said slowly and with a hint of menace. The possibilities were endless. He use to work as teller at a  bank, always handling everyone else’s money, financing there fun, treating them like fucking kings of the world This was definitely going to be a step up for him. Who knew it would take a zombie apocalypse for him to reach his true potential.

Waking up with Casey’s arm around Jill was her favorite way to start the day. Wait a second, he was injured and in the hospital. She remembered falling asleep in the chair how did she end up in bed and with Casey cuddled up around her?

“Morning.”

“Morning to you. How did I get into this bed?”

“I asked and you crawled in. Easy as that.”

“Aren’t you in pain?”

Pulling her a bit closer “Nah, Beth came in and gave me a couple pain killers. She said she’d bring in some breakfast too.” Jill was turning red and covered her face with her hand.

“She saw us like this?” Jill was mortified.

“Yeah, I think she thought it was sweet. Said it was good for my recovery.” As he nuzzled her cheek.

“Bull shit. You need to lay back and rest.”

“I’ve been resting, for three days now, I hate it.” Beth came in using her butt to push open the door.

“Oh good your both up.” Jill slowly extracted herself from Casey and the bed and helped Beth set a table to eat at. Casey started rising too.

“Hey where are you going?” Jill immediately rushed to halt his progress.

“She said I could try moving around, I figured breakfast was a good place to start.”

“He should be ok. Just go easy and slow.” They both watched Casey gingerly step on to the floor and limp over the table. Beth did a quick assessment of Casey, looking for signs of pain or discomfort.

“I’d say after breakfast you’re ok to go. But you have to take it easy.” The two ate quickly after Beth left.

“So are you going to talk to Tom today?” Casey stopped eating and looked up at her.

“I’m not sure. I mean, I thought about it all night. But I don’t know.”

“We ran into each other, the last night.”

“What? Did he do anything? Say anything?” Casey’s dander was quick to rise.

“He asked if we needed to talk and I said no, and we both said fine.”

“Really? That was it? He didn’t try to hurt you or anything?”

“No Casey. We were civil.” They finished eating and decided Casey was good enough to try out his sea legs, so after cleaning up and getting dressed in something more than sweat pants and a t-shirt. Casey had a 4 day beard going on as they headed outside to be greeted by others doing their rounds. It was a nice sunny day as they strolled around, Casey going slow because of his ankle, but he could put some weight on it now. He really wanted a shower and a shave, but he wanted to talk to Oscar and Kurt, see how things were coming with their military excursion, and when they’d be going back. He wanted to hear from Mike and Jack, he knew there were working on new defenses. Jane was working on the watch towers and angles for good viewing. Lots he wanted to do today.

A nice shower and a shave later, showers are always nice with company, Casey and Jill eventually met up with Kurt, Oscar and Andy to go over some of the findings, thoughts and concerns about trying to maintain a farm off site. Logistically it was a nightmare, fencing, walls, weapons, people, and they hadn’t even discussed the animals yet. But in theory, this could be a dream come true, eventually being able to produce and make their own food. Maybe they could sustain life to outlast the zombies.

“So what would be our first step?” Jill asked.

“I suppose we’d have to see if there were any animals left.” Kurt filled in the silence.

“Let’s get Joe, Ryan and anyone else who knows about farming together to discuss our plan of attack.”

“We can start organizing for some farmer recon.” Everyone chuckled a bit when Oscar added this. Everyone broke to leave. The dollar store had long ago become there place of meetings and planning. It was just large enough for a group of people to be in comfortable for some good discussion. As Jill and Casey stepped outside Tom was walking by with a hand truck of what appeared to materials for weapons making, over to the Kohl’s store. Everyone stopped, feeling the awkwardness in the air. You couldn’t miss it, it was pretty thick.

“Well boys, I have errands to run.” And she ski-daddled away, with Casey giving her a treacherous look at her fleeting back.

“Are we doing this now?” Tom indicated between himself and Casey.

“That depends I suppose on what you have to say.”

“I’m sorry.” Tom said right away and looked down. “I . . .  shouldn’t have left the way I did. I just .  . ” He trailed off.

“You’re just sorry? That’s it? You kicked me in the face. You called Jill a murdering whore.” He paused trying to get his next comment out without emotion choking him up. “You made it seem like my daughter was nothing compared to yours. You spit in my face.” There was a pause.

“I don’t know what you want from me.” Tom spoke quietly.

“Nothing I guess.” Casey started to walk slowly away nursing his side.

“What happened?”

“Car accident.”

“What? How?”

“I was speeding, trying to avoid cars in the road, a horde of zombies blindsided me and tipped the SUV. I broke some ribs. I’m fine.”

“I should have been here, to go with you. To have your back, all day and every day.”

“Yeah, you should have.” Casey was trying to get a deep breath but it still hurt, Beth had said it was important to breathe deep.

“Here sit down.” Tom was indicated some of the boxes on his palette jack.

“I don’t need your help.” Casey said breathing long and slow.

“Look . .” Tom started out angrily and slowly realized he wasn’t as angry anymore, he was hurt. He’d lost everything he’d loved and didn’t know how to reclaim it. “When I was out there, I had nothing and no one. Maybe the first few days it was great, but it felt empty.” He stopped to prepare to tell Casey about the Hell Hole. “I was kidnapped.” Casey couldn’t hide the shock on his face. “That kid with me, he was at this place too. They’d killed his mother. This place was horrible, drugs, prostitution, slavery, it was a pit of despair.” He sat down himself and shook his head. “I can’t even tell you the horrible things I did there. All I could think about was getting back to here and begging forgiveness, from all of you. Brian and I escaped after they killed Jeff.”

“Jeff!?”

“Yeah he’d found the place too, or they kidnapped him. It’s actually not far from here I can’t believe we never ran across them. They tortured us.” He closed his eyes to keep his watering eyes hidden. “Jeff told them about this place, they want to find it pretty bad.”

“Did they track you? How do you know you weren’t followed?”

“They did follow us. But I killed them.”

“We need to alert the guards to look for anything suspicious. We can’t be too careful now.” He walked over to Tom and held out his hand. “You might want to tell your wife all this. She was miserable when you were gone. And maybe apologize to Jill.” Tom looked up and took Casey’s hand. “She seems hardened and cold to you, but she hurts just as much. Plus you’re my best friend.” And the two men hugged it out, quick and man-like. With no further words needed and amazingly things already feeling better Tom knew Casey was right, both women needed to hear the word sorry and see him grovel.

Most of the night and early morning had been spent driving around. Their fuel was dangerously low, but there plan was working. Two lone cars in the distance were trailing easily a few hundred zombies. Now they just had to point them in the right direction. The stopped a mile or so from the mall area. Luke rolled down his window.

“ We’ll have them get right on us, then a few blocks from the place try and duck out of site and let’s see if they head to that fort.”

“You got it man!” Both engines revved as they waited for the horde to shuffle closer. They had managed to find some of the fast ones too, which Luke was really happy about, he was really wanting to see how they handled them.

“I don’t want to talk to you.”

“Please, please let me explain.” He turned to follow her.

“No, you had your chance to talk to me and you walked away, like I’m doing now.” Vikki walked into the Menards and looked around for something to do. She wanted to hide or have a chore or job today. She had nothing till her watch in a few hours.

“Please. I’m begging you Vikki.” Tom dropped to his knees before her, he had fresh tears in his eyes. He sought Vikki out right after he talked to Casey, he couldn’t hold in his words for her anymore. “You don’t have to say anything, just listen. Please.”

“Fine.” She crossed her arms across her chest as Tom rose to look at her face.

“I’m sorry.” He began. Vikki shut her eyes and turned away, but he pulled her teary eyed face back to look at her. “I’m a rotten son of a bitch, an asshole. I left you in your time of need.” He took a breath. “I should have been here for you. To help you with the hurt and pain you were going through We could have, should have been there for each other. But I wasn’t. And I’m truly sorry. All I can say is that I’ve learned my lesson, the hard way. I should have supported you, been here to show you how much I love you every day, and I wasn’t.” Tom took a breath. “I was tortured every day I wasn’t here, mentally and physically.” Vikki’s brow furrowed slightly with a questioning look. “But that pain was tolerable compared to being away from you. I’m trying to mend fences honey. I already talked Casey.”