Travis gripped Stephen"s arm tightly with one hand. "Stephen, you"re not wealthy or prestigious anymore. Now, you"re just another living human being. You"re a part of this town. This fort. I wish to G.o.d you two would settle down and just adapt. Look, I get that you used to be spoiled rotten, but those days are gone. All of us need to carry our own d.a.m.n weight and help everyone out here in this fort. Do you get that? Do you understand that? We can"t afford to be selfish anymore."
Wrenching his arm away, Stephen looked unsure of what to say next. He rubbed his arm, his eyes cast downward.
"The old world is gone. This is the new world. You gotta adapt. Be a part of us. Settle down. Learn some useful skills. Chip in. Make some friends, Stephen."
"You know, everyone keeps talking about the old world being gone. But it"s really not. It"s just waiting for us to push back the dead then everything will go back to the way it was. I will rise to the top again. I will take care of my wife. You"ll go back to being a foreman of a construction site, working for me, not strutting around acting like you"re the mayor."
Stephen"s voice was angry, but defensive. "All these people you want us to be friends with will go back to their pathetic lives. You think everyone is equal, but people with power, like me, have that power because we worked hard to gain it and we deserve it."
"Stephen, you got your money cause your great-grandpa was smart enough to take advantage of the railroad when it came through these parts way back in the day. He worked his a.s.s off to be a success and bring commerce to this area. He put this town on the map. He built this hotel.
He brought jobs into this town and he made it happen. h.e.l.l, this town is named after your great-grandma. I"ve been in that little museum down the hall that shows him working side by side with the townspeople. So maybe you should follow his example and join us in making this fort a success. Let that be your legacy."
"You don"t get it, Travis. You think I"m just a spoiled, rich man who never did anything to earn my keep. Well, I have. I have worked d.a.m.n hard.
And I love my wife. I want her to be happy and she is not happy. She wants our supplies back and our Hummer. She wants an armed escort and some people to come along to work the estate. I think she deserves those things. Being here is hard on her. And being a good, decent husband, I plan to do what she needs to make her safe and happy."
Stephen was close to being enraged.
Travis shook his head, frustrated at not being able to get through to the man. "You go out there and it will be just you and her unless someone is dumb enough to fall for your ruse."
"I am not a man to be trifled with, Travis." Stephen stared at Travis for a long, piercing second, then turned and stomped off without another word.
Travis raised his hand to rub his very tired eyes. When he lowered his hand, Bill was staring at him. "What"s up?"
"He isn"t an easy man, Travis. You can"t make him be what he doesn"t want to be."
"You heard that, huh?"
Bill nodded, his hands resting on his belt. It was cinched tighter than in the past and his once round face was now more oval, with a hint of jowls.
"They ain"t never been easy people. Stephen is the younger brother who wasn"t supposed to inherit his Daddy"s mantle, but his older brother managed to get his a.s.s killed doing some fool stunt in a race car. He"s always trying to prove himself, and his wife ain"t much better. She"s from the trailer park and got lucky becoming a beauty queen. Stephen has been smitten with her since the day he saw her. He has poured tons of money into making her sister"s political career work. They don"t wanna be here, Travis, because this is what they wanted to avoid all their lives. Being common folk."
Travis inclined his head, acknowledging this was probably true. "Do you want to give them a bunch of supplies, the Hummer, an armed escort, and maids?"
"Nope. I say we give them a decent car, though. A week"s worth of supplies. Weapons. Ammo. And let them go defend their home. They won"t last long. We both know it. Either they"ll get their a.s.ses eaten or show back up in a week or two begging to come back in." Bill"s expression was somewhere between amus.e.m.e.nt and anger.
"We"re agreed on that point then. I told him as much, but..."
"Let him simmer down then tell him again." Bill shrugged slightly. "It"s the humane thing to do, I guess."
"Never gets easier, does it?"
"It will. One day."
"As long as it"s not when we"re all dead," Travis said with a weary grin.
"I was trying to catch ya and let ya know ol" Calhoun got his specs down for those flamethrower weapons for the walls. I can"t make heads or tails of his scribbling, but I figured you, Eric and Juan could let him know if it"s doable."
"Mind rounding up the others?"
"Can do."
"Thanks." Travis walked on toward the old hotel manager"s office that he used as the mayor of the fort. He felt tired and wanted a bit of a nap, but he could tell already that wasn"t going to happen. It had been hard to climb out of the warm bed he shared with Katie this morning. His wife"s body had felt so comfortable tucked next to his, and the sound of the ice rain tapping against the window had almost lured him back under the covers. Now, he was wishing he had stayed there.
Travis pa.s.sed the front desk where Peggy hung out during a lot of the day trying to contact the outside world on what was left of the internet. He noted that she had a cute new hairdo.
"Looking good, Peg."
Without looking away from her game of Solitaire, she handed him a bottle of Febreze. "Calhoun is looking for you. I think he was rolling in dog s.h.i.t."
"This day just keeps getting better."
3. Tangled Webs Calhoun skirted around the lobby and ducked down one of the lesser used hallways. The voices in the lobby were echoing and mingling with the ones in his head, causing his brain to hurt. Falling against the wall, he was dimly aware of the two people standing behind a plant nearby, whispering to each other.
Clutching his head, he tried to get his thoughts together. He envisioned all the thoughts moving through his mind like long, colorful threads, twisting and looping, sometimes weaving together. Sometimes they made perfect sense, other times they became a jumbled mess. When that happened, his head throbbed and those threads all sang in wild voices, demanding his attention. Gripping the wall with his dirty, gnarled hand, he tried to find the strongest thread, the strongest thought, and hold onto it.
Then it came to him.
His eyes snapped open and he became vividly aware of the two people staring at him with disgust. It was that blond b.i.t.c.h and Ray, one of the salvage crew guys.
"Blanche Mann, you"re the wh.o.r.e of Babylon!" He could see it so clearly.
Her twisted soul was a black miasma of goo around her neck and evil was vivid in her red eyes. With a cry of despair, he twirled around and ran from the hallway.
He barely heard Blanche order Ray to, "Get the old f.u.c.ker."
It was painfully clear to him what was going on now and what he needed to do. There was evil in the halls of the fort, and he had to rectify the situation.
Running across the lobby, his battered boots beating on the marble floor, he wailed an agonized cry.
Out of the fuzzy world around him, a face came sharply into focus and he skittered to a stand still.
"What"s up, Calhoun?" Travis looked at him quizzically.
Calhoun felt his mind slip off the thread he was clutching and swirl downward into the maze of brightly colored thoughts. It took a few seconds for his mind to snap onto a new one.
"Flame throwers!" Calhoun snapped his fingers. "Flame throwers to protect the gate! That"s it!"
"You seemed a little upset there."
Calhoun tapped his chin as he tried to remember what it was that had terrified him so. Whatever it was, it had escaped him. "Don"t rightly know."
"Okay, but you"re ready to talk about the flamethrowers? Eric is in my office with Juan." Travis looked at him worriedly.
Fumbling with his jacket, Calhoun managed to find the pocket he had made by sewing a kerchief into the lining. Tugging out his notebook, he waved it in front of Travis. "Got it right here! Let"s go!"
The big red thread in his mind, full of fire and the destruction of messed up clones, throbbed and opened up, pouring out all the information he needed to guide the young ones to proper defenses.
For the next thirty minutes, he was vividly sane.
Five minutes after the meeting, he was lost again in the web of his own mind, feeling uneasy that there was something trapped inside that was very important and dangerous to the fort.
4. The Scales After the meeting with Calhoun broke up, Travis found himself consumed with helping Juan and Bill build an extensive list of supplies the fort would need to expand. Walking in the cold, notepad in hand, he had to marvel at the high walls that encompa.s.sed their world. Strange how the first makeshift wall made up of construction trucks had given birth to high, concrete walls patrolled by armed sentries.
It was nearly dinnertime when he finally made it back into the hotel and up to the room he shared with his wife. He felt half-frozen and was dying for a hot shower. When he pushed open the door, he saw Katie sitting in a chair near the window, holding a baby blanket, and staring wistfully toward the hills.
"Katie?"
"Do you ever wonder when it happened? When the tide turned against us?" Her voice was soft, thoughtful, and melodic.
"What do you mean?" He shrugged off his heavy jacket, glad that the heater in the room was working.
"There had to be a moment, a flash, a second, when it all turned against the living. When the future of the world was precariously balanced between the living and the dead. And then the scales tipped in favor of the dead." She looked toward him and he saw she had been crying.
"Katie, honey," he said, feeling utterly helpless all at once. He was confident and strong when out on the walls, planning, plotting, building, and fighting, but seeing his wife crying made him feel desperately weak.
He moved to comfort her, wondering if he could.
"I was just sitting here, looking at the blanket, and wondering about the baby and then it hit me. What if our baby is the first of the new generation that will grow up with the dead walking? He or she will never know what it is like to live freely outside of these walls. And then it occurred to me that there must have been just one deciding moment in all of this."
Travis knelt beside her chair, his hand rubbing her fingers lightly.
"Maybe, but we"ll never know what it was or when it happened. This insanity had to be happening for some time before what we call the First Day. It couldn"t have gone to h.e.l.l in just twenty-four hours. Jenni"s no good husband was bitten the day before. There was that weird plane crash in Chicago. Riots were being reported for days before the First Day."
"Why didn"t they tell us?" Katie"s green eyes were so big and beautiful with tears sparkling in them. "Why don"t you think they warned us?"
"Maybe they thought it was under control. Or maybe they didn"t understand how fast it was spreading."
"Do you think they wanted it to happen?"
Travis pondered this, then shrugged. "I may sound like Crazy Old Calhoun, but maybe they wanted it to happen so they could seize full control, but it went too far. I don"t know, but if there was a moment when the scales tipped, then maybe it will come again. But this time those scales will tip in our favor."
Katie leaned her forehead against his and stroked his cheek lightly. "I want to believe you."
"Then do," Travis whispered, and kissed her lightly.
"I"m sorry I"m being so hormonal," Katie said, pouting.
"Nah. You"re just saying what everyone else thinks. We"re all in a weird funk. We need to get ourselves out of it. Focus on more positive things.
Like the fact we are alive. We are inside fortified walls, not outside them.
We have food and supplies. We have ammunition. We have each other."
Travis felt better just expressing those few thoughts aloud. It was all true, but so easy to forget when the days were cold, gray and full of unexpected dangers.
"You"re right," Katie said after a beat. "And maybe we will have our moment to claim it back. For our sake and the baby"s."
Travis leaned over the armrest to kiss her swelling belly. He was in awe that his baby was growing inside of her and of the magic of that reality.
His little family meant the world to him, and he never would have had it if not for the zombie rising. It was a strange, wondrous truth.
"I"m going to take a hot shower, then take my favorite girl out to dinner."
"Oh, that sounds good! Where are we going?" Her bright smile washed away all the shadows that had been haunting her expression.
"Well, there is this quaint little place downstairs that has some of the best food around."
"Sounds amazing! I can"t wait!" Katie grinned and wiped the last of her tears away on the baby blanket.
"And then maybe we"ll get crazy and go watch a movie. I hear there is a Burt Reynolds double feature tonight."
"Oh, wow! I don"t think I can stand the excitement!"
Travis grinned, stood, and pulled her out of the chair. Holding her close, he kissed her tenderly on the lips. "You know you want to hear Curtis heckling The Bandit for his lawbreaking ways."
Katie snuggled up against him, laughing softly. "We"re just one big crazy family, aren"t we?"
Laying his cheek on her blond hair, Travis smiled. "Yeah. We are. And it will be okay."
Katie sighed, her body relaxed against his and Travis was glad that she trusted him so completely. He would never let her down. It was his sacred vow. He would never let Katie down.
5. No Peace for the Living or Dead Rune sauntered into the dining room and looked around with a cautious eye. The hotel was full of shimmering patches of light and shadows, but he was trying not to let on that he could see them. He was relieved to see the dining room full of people lining up against one wall for dinner.
People from the kitchen were loading up the buffet with big bins of food and it smelled like it was chili tonight.
The soft whisper of a ghost glided past him and he kept his eyes straight ahead and didn"t acknowledge it.
"Hey, Rune!"
Looking around, Rune caught sight of Maddie and Dale waving at him from the line. He nodded his head at them in greeting and took up the last place in line. He wasn"t too surprised when Maddie and Dale joined him. Maddie had her long hair braided down her back and had found a long flowing skirt and comfortable sweater to wear. Rune wasn"t too sure how old she was, but he thought she was pretty, wrinkles and all. Dale was clean-shaven except for razor sharp chops. They were impressive.
"How are you, Rune?"
"Good, Maddie. Slept all day. I was tuckered out."
"Figured you were taking the time to rest up. I volunteered to help with the garden."
"Good for you!"
"I got a nice little shave and a haircut. They actually got a beauty salon here. Can you imagine?" Dale shook his head, looking floored by the idea. "I was pretty f.u.c.king amazed."
An old man in a wheelchair glided by to the front of the line. His arms were covered in tattoos and he looked older than G.o.d. Rune was impressed with how things were run in the fort. It almost felt like normal life.
"Maybe I"ll drop by and get my hair properly done. Wind is h.e.l.l on it after awhile." Rune folded his arms over his chest, edging up in line a little.
"You could stay here, you know. Not head back out there. It"s so dangerous. So many people have died." Maddie shook her head sadly.