“Promise,” said David to his aunt. “Promise
you’ll be okay.”
“I promise,” said Annie as she knelt beside
her nephew.
“I also wanted to get you all together
because I need to tell you something else,” said Laura and I saw
that she was holding tightly onto Zack’s hand. She was nervous,
which baffled me. I couldn’t recall ever seeing Laura acting this
way. She looked in my direction and said, “Billy, you’re the only
one here other than Annie and me that ever got a chance to meet my
husband, David.”
I nodded, uncertain where this was going. I
offered, “He saved our lives.”
She smiled and took a long breath before
continuing. “Yes he did. And I loved him so much. I miss him every
day, and I’m never going to stop loving him. I used to always say
that he was married to me his whole life, so I planned on being
married to him for my whole life too. It seemed like the right
thing to do. But then this big oaf showed up and just wouldn’t stop
pestering me.” She nudged Zack and smiled up at him.
“Hey,” he said with a wide grin. “I’m nothing
if not persistent.”
“That’s true,” said Laura. “He’s been asking
me to marry him for years. He’ll just throw the question into
random conversations, like one day I might slip up and say
yes.”
“One of these days,” said Zack and the rest
of us laughed along with him.
“And after all these years, despite my better
judgment, I fell in love with you. Which is why I need to ask you a
question.” Laura got down on one knee and the room erupted in gasps
that turned into jubilant cheering. Laura had to shout her
question, “Zack, will you marry me?”
“About damn time,” said Zack with the widest
smile I’d ever seen creasing his beard.
Annie was the loudest of everyone as we
clapped and cheered while Zack and Laura kissed. Annie rushed over
and enveloped them in a hug before kissing them both on the
cheeks.
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you were
going to do this,” said Annie. “When’s the big day?”
“Sooner the better,” said Zack as he put his
arm around his fiancé.
“Well, if it’s okay with you,” said Laura as
she looked up at Zack, “I was thinking we could have a ceremony
when we’re setting up the new settlement. Bonnie and Beach got
married when they started Vineyard, so maybe we could do the same
to kick off the new settlement.”
“Sounds good to me,” said Zack.
I was perplexed, and concerned. “Wait,” I
said as I considered what Laura had said. “Are you thinking of
staying at the settlement instead of with the Rollers?”
It seemed that no one else in the room had
gleaned the same from what she’d said, but I could see the
confirmation in the way she looked at me. We silently waited for
her answer.
She offered me the faintest of smiles, and it
sounded like she was apologizing when she said, “It’s the hardest
decision I’ve ever had to make, but I’m going to step down as
captain. If you want to take over, Billy, I’ll do everything I can
to help you, but I think it’ll be better for everyone if I help
with New Vineyard.”
I wasn’t sure if I was angry, annoyed, or
simply confused. I wanted to leave, but I was trapped in my chair
as Laura stared at me. She expected an answer, but I didn’t have
one. At that moment, it felt like I didn’t have any answers at
all.
Annie Conrad
The sun hadn’t even crested the horizon by
the time we made it to the highway. The inky night sky faded, and
the orange blaze of sunrise had finally started to appear in the
distance. Midnight’s chill persisted, as if mocking my insistence
that spring had finally broken winter.
My mother and Zack followed behind us in a
sedan while I rode with Ben, Harrison, and Stubs in a camouflage
Jeep Wrangler. I was in the passenger seat and Harrison was in the
back with Stubs as Ben drove. I kept an eye on the brightening
landscape and caught sight of the first peek of the sun as it broke
the plain.
Ben pulled over on the side of the road and
Zack parked behind us. Ben glanced over at me and said, “Do they
want us to get out?”
“No,” I said as I unbuckled myself and
started to open my door. “I think she just doesn’t want me to go
say goodbye. Give me a minute.”
I got out and closed the door behind me
before walking over to Zack’s car. Mom was getting out of the
passenger side, and she crossed her arms as the cold morning air
chilled her.
“It’s so cold,” she said and the fog of her
breath was carried away by the breeze. Her nose was cherry red, and
her cheeks were beginning to blush. “Annie, are you sure you don’t
want to give it a couple more weeks? What if the Jeep breaks
down?”
“Then we’ll hotwire something else.” It was
clear that she was just trying to think of anything she could to
delay our departure.
“Did you check the packs?” she asked about
our gear. “You know how Abe can be. He always remembers to pack
those fireworks of his, but sometimes he forgets the really
important stuff. He might’ve forgotten…”
“I checked them and so did Ben,” I said as
Zack came around the front of the car to stand beside us. “The
packs are fine. This isn’t the first time I’ve done this, you
know?”
“I know,” she said as she continued to stare
at me. She reached out and twirled my hair as she smiled. “Your
hair looks so pretty in the sunshine.”
“Thanks, mom,” I said, humoring her. “We
should probably get going.”
“Just give me a minute,” she said and her
voice trembled. “Just a minute.”
“You don’t have to worry about me,” I
said.
Zack chuckled and put his arm on my shoulder.
“That’s not the way it works, kid. We’re parents. All we do is
worry.”
“Well, stop it,” I said, although I wasn’t
angry. If my mother had acted this way six months earlier, at the
outset of one of my other sojourns, I would’ve been annoyed and
probably accused her of treating me like a child. This time was
different. Kim’s death had shaken my mother to her core, and the
effects were evident in her sickly pallor and gaunt cheeks. She
looked ten years older than she was. I knew that her
over-protectiveness was because she was terrified of losing another
child. It would kill her.
I hugged her, and felt her boney shoulders
tremble as I squeezed her tight. She sobbed, and I pulled away to
look at her in exasperation. “Mom, stop it. I’m going to be
fine.”
“I know,” she said as she sheepishly wiped
away the tears. She smiled, nodded, and tried to feign happiness.
“I know you will be. You’re a tough girl. Tougher than I ever was.”
She reached out again and touched my cheek. She wiped away one of
her own tears that had stuck to my cheek during our embrace.
“If I’m at New Vineyard when you get back, I
want you to come right there. Okay?”
I nodded and agreed. I still wasn’t thrilled
with her decision to keep me out of the Rollers’ fight with Jerald,
but even Billy had sided with her on this. When I returned, I was
going to be in charge of helping New Vineyard train new scouts,
just like I’d been trained by Jules so many years earlier.
“We should let them get going,” said
Zack.
Laura continued to stare at me for a moment
as she took a long breath. She finally nodded and said, “Okay.” She
pulled me in for another hug and then proceeded to kiss my face in
several spots like she used to when I was a child. I laughed, but
she was undaunted and continued to kiss me. “Go.” She said finally
as she let me go. Her abrupt command was her way of trying to deal
with this quickly, like tearing off a bandage so it hurt a little
less. “Get going.”
“I love you,” I said as I walked backward and
waved. “I’ll see you in a week.”
She waved, and then hurried to get back in
her car.
“Be careful, kid,” said Zack as he made his
way to the driver’s seat.
“I will,” I said as I got back into the
Jeep.
“We good to go?” asked Ben as I got back
in.
“Yeah.” I was embarrassed and scrunched my
nose as I complained, “Sorry, I don’t know what that was all about.
She’s not usually like that.”
“She’s just being a mom,” said Harrison.
I watched in the side view mirror as Zack
backed his sedan up and then turned around to head to the rehab
center. Ben started the Jeep and we headed off in the opposite
direction, towards the ruins of Denver.
“I guess,” I muttered as I clicked my safety
belt on.
“Maybe it has something to do with her
illness,” said Harrison with a casual tone, as if merely
contemplating a well-known fact.
“What illness?” I asked, unaware of what he
was referring to.
“I don’t know,” said Harrison. “Whatever it
is that’s been making her so sick all time. I figured you already
knew what it was.”
“I don’t know about anything,” I said as I
turned to look back at Harry.
“Sorry, sorry,” said Harrison as if he’d said
something offensive. “I shouldn’t go spreading rumors. Pretend I
didn’t say anything.”
“What rumors?” I asked. His obfuscation
annoyed me.
“You really hadn’t heard this?” he asked.
My patience ran out and I spoke tersely, “No.
Tell me.”
“I didn’t figure a rumor had a chance in hell
of staying a secret in that damn place.” Harrison could sense my
anger and hurried to continue. “The guards noticed that she was
running to the outhouse all the time, and they started wondering
what was up. That’s what got everyone talking.”
“And what was everyone saying?” I asked.
“That she was sick with something. Lots of
people have their theories, but I don’t think anyone knows for
sure.”
I considered it, but then shook my head. “No,
she would’ve told me if something was wrong.”
“You sure about that?” Harrison’s tone
intimated his disagreement.
“Yes,” I said, although I quickly began to
question myself. “Maybe.” It was only the night before that I’d
learned of her plan to ask Zack to marry her, and she hadn’t chosen
to confide in me on that matter either.
“She looks like she’s sick,” said Ben.
It felt like they were ganging up on me,
although I knew that wasn’t the case. “It’s from the stress.” Now I
was just trying to convince myself, which was evident in the way I
rambled on. “Stress can do that to a person. She’s got the whole
damn town breathing down her neck, and half of them want to go to
war, but the rest want to hide. I mean, it’s no wonder she looks
like hell. No, she’s not sick. She would’ve told me.”
“You’d know better than us,” said Harrison.
“We’re just looking in from the outside.”
I suddenly felt like I was too. I watched the
image of Zack’s car fading in the side view mirror until we went
over a hill, and then they were gone. Unbelievably, I wished we
were headed back the other way, back to the rehab center where my
family was.
“How far do you think we can drive on the
highway?” asked Harrison.
I didn’t realize he was asking me until Ben
looked over at me and said, “Annie?”
I’d forgotten that Ben wasn’t as familiar
with this area as I was. Back when Hero and I worked with one
another, I rarely got the chance to map our trips. “Well, there’s a
few ways we can go.”
“Which do you think will be the best way?”
asked Ben, and I suddenly felt woefully underprepared.
I shook off my momentary malaise, and
retrieved Billy’s map that I’d spent the previous night marking up.
It was a travel map that folded out in several odd ways, almost as
if it were meant as a puzzle to get back together again once
opened. Billy had helped me transfer the notes he kept on which
roads were still traversable and other bits of information we knew
about the area. Over the past several years, the Rollers had
gathered a wealth of information about the area that stretched
along the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains between what had once
been Wyoming and Colorado. We knew which areas were controlled by
raiders, and what the normal trader routes were. Of course, all of
that had been washed away after Jerald’s attack. Billy surmised
that the loss of Vineyard, Hanger, and Juniper would have ripples
across the landscape, affecting where the raiders took refuge. Not
to mention that the traders would’ve either left the area
completely or had been brought into Jerald’s fold. Their role in
his plans, by delivering tainted food to the settlements, wouldn’t
go unpunished. They’d made their way onto the Rollers’ shit
list.
“We can…” I caught myself speaking in a
subordinate tone, offering instead of commanding. I thought of my
mother, and how she always spoke with such conviction while also
allowing herself to be open to other people’s opinions. I
consciously adjusted the way I spoke in an attempt to be more like
her. “We’ll take this down to 470, and then we’ll need to get off
the main roads. We don’t want to head into any areas where we can
be seen easily. Denver’s roads aren’t bad, but we’ll want to stay
away from there. It’s infested, and we heard from traders that
military vehicles would take that route from time to time. That’s
the last place we want to end up. We’ll have to head west, through
some of the suburbs. It might get a little tight in there, but if
we can make it out to the foothills the area opens up a
little.”
“You’re the boss,” said Ben.
The phrase caused me pain, as if my heart
cringed at the suggestion. I looked back into the fading highway
disappearing in my side view mirror, more aware than ever of what
I’d left behind.
* * *
“That ride would’ve taken us an hour at most
in the old days,” said Harrison. He’d been talking about the ways
the world had changed after the apocalypse. Ben and I let him
prattle on, mostly because we didn’t have anything to add. My mind
was focused on thoughts of my mother, and Ben was just naturally
quiet. Harrison happily filled the air with his stream of
consciousness. “Maybe even less. If the government was good for one
thing, it was keeping the old rat race running smoothly.”