End of the Line (Book 2): Stuck in the Middle (38 page)

The day before we met with the field hands who stuck around. Tanya told them they had a choice of coming to Harbor, staying at the estate, or leaving. She told them Harbor was a farming town and field work would be expected, but no one would be worked all day. We had three hour shifts, had comfortable rooms to stay in, and we all shared in the bounty. Unlike here where Joel and his men ate their fill and the hands got scraps. Joel worked these people sometimes 12 to 16 hours a day. The only ones who worked less in the fields were seven pretty women who serviced Joel and his men when needed. One of the girls was the same age as my daughter. I should have shot Joel in the back.

              The split ended being about even, but a few upped and left. I gave them weapons and supplies. Some of those who stayed opted to come to Harbor instead. I don’t blame them. Some decided to stay at the estate and finish the Harvest. I hoped everyone would come to Harbor, but the estate did have fruit trees. We left Ryan and Oleana in charge.

I didn’t know the sum total with the new people but I think we were getting close to a hundred. I worried about how we were going to feed and take care of all these people. I worried about Tanya being able to lead them. I supposed I would have to help her.

We spent the morning shuttling people back and forth. In the afternoon, we had a service to honor our dead. The bodies had already been buried while we were gone. I had wanted to bury Simon but time was of the essence to rescue Grace.

             
The estate house had a chicken coop with a dozen or so chickens, a few horses and one cow that was at least young. Oleana had been a servant originally at the estate. She was a slave like everyone else, but Joel needed her expertise so she had higher status. She gave us two dozen eggs and three bags of apples with a promise of more. I wasn’t as a good a cook as my dad so I hardboiled them. I made a salad from some of our lettuce and cut up a bunch of apples. I put it all in a bowl and left in the parlor for people to eat after the funeral.

We had the service outside, in the back of the house. Ricky had set aside a small area not fa
r from the cantina where Frannie and he had buried those who died on the farm. Most of the graves were unmarked. Our people had sticks and paper to mark the graves. I didn’t know about masonry but I wanted to carve something for the graves.

Aisha and her sister came to the funeral. She didn’t cry but I knew she had been close to Simon. I knew she
also mourned Maddie and Rachel having just learned of their deaths.

             
Jim came, although he still looked weak and pale, his arm bandaged and in a sling while Manny held him up. He hugged Aisha for a long time then hugged Grace. She let him. 

             
Eric didn’t come.

Tanya gave a passionate speech about all of our dead. How Dave saved Jim’s life, how Simon was a big brother, how the rest pitched in to make this a community. I only half paid attention. I thought about Simon and how close Dena
came to being killed. Tanya was right. My family came first but as I looked around at the people at the funeral and the new people who had come from the estate, I realized the community came a close second. I needed to keep it safe.

              After the funeral I asked Aisha and her sister along with Tanya and Hannah to the comm room. She looked confused but because Tanya told her it was okay, she followed us without a fuss. Everyone was happy to see her, but she looked uncomfortable.

             
“What’s up?” she asked when she got there. She stood while Ariel sat on one of the swivel chairs we liberated on a body hunt.

             
“Hi Aisha—Ariel. I know you barely know me, but Tanya will tell you I’m a good man. My wife,” I said, motioning to Hannah “and I look after the kids here. We have a daughter Dena about your age. We’ll be happy to look after you and your sister.”

             
“That won’t be necessary,” her voice stern and stoic.

             
“What?” I looked at Tanya for her help but she looked stunned.

             
“Ariel and I are longed past supervision. We’ve been on our own since our mother died.”

             
Hannah smiled but I saw heartbreak in it.

             
“Aisha, I know things have been hard,” she said. “And it seems like you can live without parents. You don’t have to be afraid to have them again. You aren’t grown up.”

             
“No disrespect, but that isn’t it. I looked after myself since the zombies came. Even when my mother was alive, she had trouble coping and I had to be the adult. When she died, I grew up fast. I can’t go back to being just a kid, it’s too late.”

             
“Ariel, are you okay with this?” Ariel, a little girl with dark eyes who seemed quiet didn’t say anything, she nodded. I looked back at Aisha.

             
“You’re only 15 and your sister is what 10?”

             
“I’ll be 16 soon. We’ve been looking after for each other. I can take care of myself.”

             
“You’re still just a kid. You went off with Joel.”

             
“So did a lot of people. Adults thought he was the messiah. I just wanted to get away from that woman.”

             
Felicia.

             
I tried Tanya again for help. Finally she spoke.

             
“How about a compromise?”

             
“I don’t have to, neither of you are my parents.”

             
“Yes, but compromises are what mature adults do.” Aisha’s face softened a little. She had been a pretty girl. She still looked like a teen but her face had hardened.

             
“What?”

             
“You and your sis won’t have any adult supervision. You’re full equal partners in the farm if you want or you can stay at the estate. Although I don’t think many people will stay after the harvest. You stay here, you get your own space. You work on the farm, sign up to do your own stuff. That includes training in firearms if you want.”

             
“What’s the compromise?”

             
“You promise you let an adult, me or someone you trust know if you’re having trouble. Like it or not, you’re still a kid, you don’t have much schooling, and some adults know things you don’t. Don’t be afraid to ask. Expect me to occasionally check up on you and your sis. And if we start teaching, your sister joins up and maybe you too. You do that because mature adults know when to ask for help.”

             
“Okay,” she said. I didn’t like the idea of a 15 year old being on her own but I wasn’t her father. Best I could do was keep an eye on them. I looked at Hannah, she looked almost relieved. I guess she wasn’t ready to get close to another kid.

              People ate the eggs in abundance as I discovered the nearly empty plate when we got back. I guess it was a hit. I grabbed a half and enjoyed a taste I haven’t had in two years. I should have saved some for later. Grace came without her rifle. Her face was still bright red and her torn hair was tied in a hair tie. She wore a yellow sundress and I could see her burnt shoulders peeling but she still looked pretty. I put my arm around Hannah and held her tightly.

             
“What?” she asked.

             
“Nothing,” I said. “Just need to hold you.”

             
Grace looked at me and smiled. I looked away feeling guilty. Reminding myself that I wouldn’t like it if Hannah ogled another man.

             
“Where’s Jim,” I asked instead. I hadn’t seen him since the service.

             
“I made him go back to bed. He insisted on coming to the funeral no matter what I said. Sam’s looking after him along with Tommy Haldish. Can’t believe we have a real movie star with us.”

             
“I think he’s acting days are over.”

             
“Still,” she said. “You can’t help being starstuck.”

             
I’d seen some of Tommy Haldish’s movies. I was never gaga over him. I only got bits of his story from Sam. He had a house out in the Hamptons and watched his wife and child die of the flu. His house had a fully stock pantry and generator. He boarded up the house to keep the zombies out. He ran out of food and met Joel. He trained to use firearms for one of his movies, so Joel asked him to join him.

             
Even though he knew about guns, he had been sheltered and handled for so long, he needed someone to look out for him. Aisha said he always slipped food and water to everyone. Joel knew about it but he liked the idea of having a famous actor around, Tommy wasn’t punished for being nice but other guards were, sometimes to the death, sometimes just a few days on the pole no matter what the temperature. If the weather was pleasant, Joel would tie them facing the zombies naked. Aisha said a couple of times people went on the pole died even though they weren’t sentenced to die. The women got it worse because when they were punished some of them were sent to Bill for a few hours and then got the pole. I heard horror stories I didn’t want to repeat.

             
This had been going on since October of last year. Almost ten months these people had been enslaved and tortured. Bill raped everyone single one of the women at least once and impregnated three of them. I shivered and held Hannah close again. This time she didn’t ask why.

             
The three pregnant women came with Dr. Philips. She had given any woman who wanted it the morning after pill. I guess some didn’t take it.

             
I was against abortion but if Dena or Hannah wanted the morning after the pill, they could have it. God would have to understand. I figured Sam gave it to Grace.

             
I thought about Joel and wondered how many people he killed. He must have killed dozens. I shivered again.

             
“You cold?” Hannah asked but she knew I wasn’t. She held me tightly. I figured we were blessed. We still had each other, Dena and Brie. Everyone we knew had lost their entire families, but it still didn’t make me less sad about Simon. 

Chapter 25

              Now I faced an unpleasant task. The smoked had cleared, the farm returned to normal. We got new workers here and seven of our people went to the manor house. We left them enough guns to take care of the zombies, but we took most everything, including the generator which Tanya thought about returning to Dr. White – but in the spring. Among Joel’s supplies in the basement was a battery operated radiation counter. When I turned it on, it still worked. The farm needed supplies and we needed the guns I left in Floral Park and the counter would make sure we were safe from radiation.

             
I have loved guns the first day my dad took me hunting. I was 10 and my mother thought I was too young. I loved it. The feel of the rifle in my hand and against my shoulder, aiming it, the kick as the bullet left the chamber. The first time I hit nothing, my dad laughed at me but in his sweet way. He kept taking me out, showing me how to shoot, how to respect the rifle and the animals we killed. When we hunted we didn’t get the animal as a trophy. We used the meat, sometimes the skin and other parts. I was not a crazy gun nut. I’m not illiterate; I have a college degree in business management. I believe in gun safety and responsibility. I don’t like being blamed and losing my gun when some other idiot was irresponsible.

             
But I was obsessed with them: their mechanics, their history, how they work, how I could make one myself. I made a replica 1840 Colt Revolver when I was 19. It came out awful but I tried again when I was 28 and it came out better.

I love everything about them but I hate that we need
ed them to protect ourselves. We got some good people at Harbor but we’re going to have to deal with people like Joel.

             
A small party of seven people would be going: Eric, Frannie, Gwen, Felix, Annemarie, and Dena. I took Dena along for some father/daughter bonding. We stopped fighting because of Simon’s death but it was about time we hashed out everything. Two houses near the farm got restored and occupied. This left an empty room across from ours. I gave it to Dena to use. Aisha and her sister took a room not far from us.

             
Henry fixed up a delivery truck in Greenport but refused to come with us. Tanya wanted to but I told her as leader she was needed here and I could handle it. After all, wasn’t I law enforcement?

             
Eric came along because I asked him if he wanted to bury his mother if her body was still there. I was glad he said yes. 

             
Dena never told me what happened in the cantina, or to Simon. Brie was heartsick, crying all the time, losing Maddie was hard for her but Simon had been devastating. She had been clingy to Hannah lately, begging to stay in our room, and she won’t speak to Charlie or Andy.

             
In the fall, the cantina will be torn down and either something new will be put up or left empty. A shame because it was part of the manor and almost 200 hundred years old. But I imagined all the art in City and how it was probably burned to cinders. I knew Jim was trying to save what antiquities he could but we couldn’t save it all. One more building won’t matter.

             
Somehow with Joel gone things became little brighter. They were fewer zombies, but the roads were bad. Soon we wouldn’t be able to travel it or have gas, although there was a few gas stations on Harbor Those tanks would become empty. Soon it would just be biodiesel, bikes, electric cars, horses and our feet. We’re back in the middle ages in some ways, but at least we got some electricity and heat.

              It took us two days to get to the truck, on its side on Woodbury road. The counter still read normal. I don’t know where the nearest bomb fell but it’s possible I may never get back to my store. I left a lot behind.

             
We couldn’t find Maddie’s body. It wasn’t there, not decayed, not in the road. Animals probably ran off with it. We found Robert’s body in the truck, decayed.  Eric helped me wrap the body and we buried him in the cemetery. I felt even more guilt about my task.

             
I swear at least a hundred decayed bodies littered the ground. Zombies apparently Grace had killed. I stood and stared at their decaying corpses as I imagined her taking them all out.

             
I looked at Eric, who was leaning against the truck, sweating.

             
“Can you help me look for my mother?” he asked.

             
“No.” He looked surprised, but even more when I pulled my gun on him.

             
“Mike, what are you doing.” he said, his voice trembling, but not out of fear. His voice sounded like Dena when she got caught in a lie.

             
Annemarie came out of the truck with a gun on Frannie and made her walk to Eric. Gwen, Felix and Dena stood behind us, silent.

             
“Mike, what the hell?” Frannie said.

             
Eric said nothing.

             
“Who drugged Grace?” I asked.

             
Neither of them said anything.

             
“Both of you worked KP that day. Both of you were conveniently in the back when it went down. Eric, you hated Grace because you thought she killed your mother. Frannie, you were in love with Joel.”

             
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Frannie’s eyes grew big. “You’re all insane.”

             
“You were obsessed him. Did he ask you for a little favor, just a little vial in Grace’s food? No big deal. You probably didn’t even know that he planned to shoot up the cantina.”

             
“No, he bamboozled me like everyone else.” She looked freaked out. “After it happened I felt like an idiot fawning over that monster.”

             
I held the gun to her head.

             
“Please don’t kill me. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

             
“We suspected both you and Eric, but we suspected you more,” I pulled the hammer back.

             
“Stop it,” Eric said, his voice still calm. “Please stop it. I did it. I drugged her. I didn’t want it to happen this way.”

             
I dropped the gun to my side. “Thanks, Frannie.” Holding a gun to an innocent woman’s head was not comfortable.

             
She looked at me nervously. “Gun wasn’t loaded, right?”

             
“Right,” I said, then pulled out my other sidearm and held it to Eric. “This one is.”

             
Grace knew it was Eric. She told me he had been staring at her before being kidnapped when normally he would leave when she came for lunch. I had to know for sure and Frannie was willing to play along to get him to confess. She wasn’t lying before. After what happened in Harbor Heights, she told Ricky she felt like an idiot for her crush on Joel.

             
“Are you going to shoot me?” he asked.

             
“No.”

             
“Then you can put the gun down,” Eric said, his voice low and somber. “I’m not a threat.”

             
Eric didn’t seem mad at being set up. “Why don’t all of you go back to the car? Eric and I need to have a talk.” No one protested. I thought he shouldn’t have to defend himself in front of the others. I didn’t watch them walk away but heard them. I knew Annemarie would stay behind to watch for zombies.

             
“Why’d you do it, Eric?” I asked when they were gone. I put my gun away but left the holster open.

             
“I was thinking with anger. I was thinking how she used to be a rich girl waited on hand and foot and just because she can shoot and became a little nicer, we bend over backwards to accommodate her. I thought she killed my mother. I fucked up. I’m sorry. I didn’t want anyone to get hurt, let alone killed and when Joel told me that her father released the virus it made me insane.”

             
“He didn’t. You know that? Joel made it up in his own diseased head.”

             
“I’m an idiot. They weren’t supposed to hurt anyone— He told me to drug her food and they would come in with guns but wouldn’t shoot anyone--“

             
“They killed nine people including my kid. They tortured Grace. They shot Jim, the man who looked after you after your mother died. What the fuck were you thinking, Eric?” I hated feeling so angry. I wanted to shake him because he went to Joel instead of us.

             
“I was thinking about my mother.”

             
“Your mother was bitten, Eric. Grace gave her a gift of dying without becoming one of them. Did you want your mother to become a zombie?”

             
Eric didn’t respond for a long time. 

              “Did Tanya send you out here to kill me? Like you did with Joel?” he finally said.

             
I shook my head. We didn’t tell anyone who did the deed. Only said Joel was dead. “She wouldn’t do that to Jim but you can’t come back to Harbor—not ever.”             

             
Eric’s demeanor changed. Fear filled his face. “You can’t leave me out here. I have nothing.”

             
“If the radiation is okay we can take you to Costking or anywhere you want to go. You got food. We’ll give you your shotgun.”

             
“I don’t want to go anywhere. I want to go back to Harbor. Look I’m sorry. I won’t live on the farm. I’ll take one of the houses. I can’t be out here alone.”

             
All of this hurt. I knew Eric didn’t mean for this to happen and he was part of the family, but I thought of Simon-- a poor kid who never had a chance. A kid I took as my own. His death made my wife even more heartbroken because that kid filled a hole in Hannah from when my son died. A hole that will now permanently be there. I thought about Grace being tortured and raped. I thought about our dead and wounded. “I’m sorry Eric. This is the only option. You can’t be part of the town anymore.”

             
“Then I’ll just stay here.”

              He sat on a curb and watched us. I offered to let him have first picks but he didn’t do it. I planned to leave him stuff I thought he needed.

             
Jim didn’t want to do this. He was upset over Eric, but he didn’t want to cast him out. He wanted to let him stay at the estate or put him in the house with Gil. He didn’t understand why Gil could stay but Eric had to go. Tanya told him that Eric had committed a crime against the community whereas Gil hadn’t yet. Tanya wanted to send him to Connecticut with the others, but we came to a compromise. If the radiation counter said it was low, we would leave him at Costking where he would have plenty of supplies. 

             
I had the shotgun he came to Costking with. I even had extra rounds for him. I would give it to him after we were done.

             
Costking carried emergency food. These sealed containers had 120 meals and lasted for 20 years. Twenty-five had been in this truck. I took 23 and left two for Eric. He sat on the curb across from us and stared. Did he want to kill us or hoped I’d change my mind?

             
Instead of worrying about Eric, I focused on the task at hand. I parked the back to the truck as
close as I could to the other, but it lay at an odd angle. We did an assembly line from one truck to the other. Dena and I were in in the broken truck, passing supplies to Frannie, who gave it to Gwen or Felix, who put it in the truck. Annemarie kept watch for zombies but really she was keeping an eye on Eric. We had only seen two zombies on this trip. Their numbers were thinning. Soon, I hoped, there were none, but I would always had to be on guard.

I got the solar panel first. Tanya had made sure supplies were evenly split and only one of the two panels got left behind. Grateful that Dave had packed it in a crate and it appeared not to be damaged from the crash.

              I noticed Dena had stopped and was looking over something.

             
“Come on Dena, chop, chop,”

             
“Dad,” Dena said, handing me a pack which I took. “It’s Maddie’s.”

             
The bag was slightly open because Dena looked inside. The first thing to greet me was a picture of Maddie and her family. Eric looked younger and had a gigantic smile. I looked back at him staring at us, no happiness in his face. It looked nothing like the person in the photo. I closed the bag.

             
“Finish up. I’ll be right with you.”

             
“I’ll bring the bag to him,” Dena said. Even though Dena and I had finally come to an understanding, this was one of those moments where I wasn’t going to let my daughter out of my sight no matter how old she was.