Chapter 33
Sean had been gone all morning, and Deb was thankful for that. She wasn’t sure when he had taken off, but she had woken to an empty bed. She had dressed, refreshed herself, and seen to Jimmy’s breakfast before grabbing a little something for herself.
Very little.
Resources on the ranch were scarce, despite record levels of production. Everything grown or farmed out on the ranch was shipped off elsewhere and sent out to supply Chain Gang soldiers spread all over the state.
Because of this, those who were original workers of the ranch were provided with scant provisions, and Deb ensured that the bulk of what they received went to Jimmy.
He was a growing boy and needed to be kept fed.
She had promised herself long ago, long before the EMP had destroyed a world she once thought she understood, that she would give of herself to ensure the safety and continued stability of her son.
Once the morning’s chores were done, Deb had a job to do.
She had to reach the cattle barn to tend to some injuries that workers had sustained while tending the land.
It wasn’t a job handed down to her by their cruel overlords.
Rather, it was a job she had taken on by choice.
If she didn’t treat wounds and provide basic first aid, it was altogether possible that permanent injury or death would befall those she used to employ.
Deb gathered Jimmy up in one arm, straining to lift him. He was getting so heavy now, and soon she’d have to trust him to toddle along after her. There was no one on the ranch she trusted to mind him for her anymore. Not even Sean.
Anyone she might have even considered was busy slaving away on the land by order of Chainz. So, Jimmy stayed with her twenty-four hours per day.
Walking out of the ramshackle little hut Sean had built for them, Deb gathered up her large first aid kit and made a beeline for the cattle barn.
That kit was feeling lighter and lighter every day, and Deb worried about what would happen when she ran out of first aid supplies.
It wasn’t like there was a store she could run to and replenish her supplies anymore.
The cattle ranch was on the other side of the farmhouse, which had served as her former home and a grim reminder of everything she had lost in this world.
The day Chainz had taken her house from her, she thought she had seen ultimate cruelty on display.
But that was before he had decreed that all injured workers were to be tossed into bales of hay in the cattle barn and ordered to get better.
He cared not one bit for the lives of these people. If they died, he’d simply replace them with people from the city or other members of his gang. If they were injured beyond the point of healing, he’d execute them like a horse with a broken leg.
These people were nothing more than animals to Chainz, and the thought of it turned her stomach. That was why Deb continued to do everything she could to help these poor people and see to it that they could survive as long as possible.
Their lives may have been hellish, but it was still life. And that had to be better than death. Deb was sure of it. Though her confidence in that thought dropped just a little with every dark day that passed.
As she passed by the farmhouse, Deb tried to avert her gaze.
Looking at the site of her former home always brought a fresh pang of loss to her, like a stab in the heart.
It was the house where she had been born.
The house her father was so proud of. The house was built generations ago by members of her family as they laid claim on this land and swore to build a life upon it.
Now it was a filthy, towering reminder of her failures, of all she had lost. It was filled with painful memories of people who were now gone. Her parents, her grandparents, Vin…
Vin had loved that house. He had helped her father put a lot of work into it in the past, and the day he and Deb had married and fully inherited the property, she could see the pride and admiration he had for her family’s work shining in his eyes.
Whenever Deb walked by the house now, it felt as though it were haunted. It was as though the ghosts of her father and Vin were floating around it, their sorrow measurable in the air at the state of the ranch and their legacy.
Normally, passing by the house took only thirty seconds or so. Her pace would quicken as she worked hard to put it behind her. Today, however, there was a commotion coming from the direction of the back porch, and it unwittingly drew her gaze.
“Fat piece of shit!” the unmistakable voice of Chainz roared from inside the house.
Deb immediately clutched Jimmy close to her and hid behind a large tree that stood tall in the house’s backyard.
A huge thump of something smashed hard into the wood of the porch, and Deb could hear the sound of a large, heavy boot slamming into something soft.
“When I tell you to do something, you fucking do it!” There was a loud grunt that followed another epic burst of impact.
Deb winced in revulsion. While she held no love for the massive member of the Chain Gang, she also did not believe anyone deserved to be subjected to the whims and childlike tantrums of an overgrown infant like Chainz.
She had no idea what had led the increasingly unstable savage to take his frustrations out on one of his most loyal followers.
Chainz was never seen anywhere without his immense bodyguard lumbering behind.
Legion had shown incredible subservience and loyalty throughout their stay on the ranch, and now Deb was seeing a prime example of how the leader of the Chain Gang rewarded such dedication.
“Clean yourself up, chump,” Chainz growled, and Deb could hear the thumping sounds of his massive boots plodding along the back porch.
The back door slammed shut with far greater force than Deb had ever heard before, but still, she waited several moments before daring to peek out.
She wasn’t sure what Chainz would do had he noticed her crouching there in secret.
She might have at one time been confident that her place as Sean’s wife granted her some form of protection against the mammoth man’s might and malice.
But now, after witnessing the beating he inflicted on one of his own, Deb worried that no one was above his horrible temper and harsh punishments.
That meant Sean was only one wrong move away from receiving his own horrible thrashing.
He had been instrumental in driving the government remnant away, and he had delivered this farm to Chainz without a fight.
On top of that, Sean brought military experience with him that was sorely lacking from the rest of Chainz’s inner circle.
He looked at situations with an analytical mind and questioned plans of action that he felt were unnecessarily dangerous, offering more tactical solutions that ended up paying off better for the criminal group in the long run.
But as time wore on, it was clear that Chainz was seeing himself more and more like a king instead of a gang leader. And kings did not like to be questioned or second-guessed in front of their subjects.
She was angry with Sean, and part of her hatred him for what he had brought down on their home.
But there was also a part of her who, underneath it all, still loved him and cared for him.
She did not want to see him dead, to have both of Jimmy’s father’s brutally torn from this world before he had a chance to truly know them.
She needed to talk to Sean about the way he conducted himself around Chainz. He needed to understand there was danger here that he was not immune to. None of them were immune to it.
Peeking out, she could see the bulbous body of Legion as it lay still on the ground.
For a moment, she worried that Chainz might have overdone the thrashing and actually killed the gargantuan guardian.
However, a very slow but still steady rise and fall of the big man’s stomach quelled those fears quickly.
Nodding to herself, Deb began to continue on her way toward the cattle barn, where the innocent wounded were awaiting her arrival.
As she moved past the prone body of Legion, the large man groaned in what must have been incredible pain.
She could not help but look over at him to see his heavily bruising and lacerated face as it poured blood into the dirt.
Those wounds needed dressing. They needed to be cleaned, or he would risk a potentially fatal infection.
Had she simply heard about this situation in passing, she might have waved it away, the life lessons of her father dwindling further and further into a cold and dead heart void of compassion.
She might have said that it served Legion right for the crimes he committed in the name of Chainz.
But actually seeing it…that was another matter altogether.
The flame of empathy her father had lit within her at a young age was dying, but it wasn’t dead yet.
And when she looked at the man bleeding into the dirt of what had once been her backyard, she didn’t see a savage killer or an occupying force.
She only saw a fellow human being. One who needed help.
She could almost feel the old man behind her, placing a warm and weathered rancher's hand on her shoulder and giving it a reassuring squeeze. She could almost hear him whisper into her ear how she needed to help, to show this cold and horrible world that kindness hadn’t died out just yet.
She stopped in her tracks and turned, staring at Legion for a moment as he weakly moved on the ground. Sighing to herself and giving into the imaginary ghost of her father’s will, she took a step in his direction and set Jimmy down on the ground.
“Wait for Momma,” she said to him, giving the baby a small touch on the tip of his nose.
Jimmy smiled at her and started to pull at the grass, entertaining himself.
As she approached Legion, Deb was amazed at the sheer size of the man.
She had never stood this close to him before, and even lying down, he was impressively large.
It reminded her of going to professional wrestling matches as a child and marveling at those mountains of humanity walk past her on their way to the ring.
She had wondered how a human being could be so inconceivably large, and here she was again, pondering that same thought.
“Are you all right?” she asked, kneeling in the dirt beside Legion’s head, laying her first aid kit down beside him as she squinted at his partially hidden face.
Legion groaned and writhed as if the sound of someone else in his vicinity had awakened him from a long and deep sleep. He started to push himself up to a seated position, gingerly touching the wounds on his face. He winced with pain as his stubby fingertips pushed against the gaping wounds.
“Let me see,” Deb said, reaching up toward him.
Legion’s eyes locked onto her, and he violently jerked back as though she were about to attack him. She nearly laughed at the idea of it. A small and skinny person like her posing a threat to a behemoth of a being like this.
She held up the first aid kit in Legion’s direct line of sight, pointing to it as though trying to communicate with an animal.
She was trying to show that she meant no harm and that she was, in fact, only trying to help.
But still, the huge man kept her trained in his line of sight as though she were a potential danger.
“I want to help,” she said gently, trying to remove any trace of unease or annoyance from her face. She reached out a hand slowly, as if afraid he was going to attack her. It felt like moving in to touch an unruly horse or a potentially dangerous dog.
But Legion made no move to stop her as she reached out and gently guided his long cascading hair away from his injured face.
“Oh dear,” she murmured, looking at the extent of the damage. There were huge areas of torn oozing skin, and most of them were covered in dirt or debris from the ground. Deb instantly opened the first aid kit and dug around inside for some alcohol and gauze.
“This isn’t going to feel great,” she warned, as she poured the disinfectant onto the cloth, “but an infection is gonna feel a whole lot worse. Especially so close to your eyes.”
She dabbed the cloth into the largest and most severe wound. Legion winced in pain but didn’t move too much.
“There we go,” Deb said as she continued to gently move the cloth through the blood. It was then that she realized something. She had thought of Chainz and his followers as though they were monsters, some kind of demons who had ripped their way out of hell and claimed her home for themselves.
But here was one of the top dogs of the Chain Gang, one of the most feared and respected animals in this pack of dogs. And yet, in the end, he was just a man. Just meat and blood and bone like everyone else.
She watched his eyes change as she continued to dress his wounds.
He didn’t speak to her, but he looked at her differently now.
There was a surprise that could also be considered utter disbelief at first. But that soon softened into gratitude, and that expression remained as she began to apply bandages to these sanitized injuries.
Deb realized there was still something to be said for her father’s view of the world. A little kindness might not unseat Chainz, it might not change the world, but it could, at this moment, alter the perceptions of two people who started to see one another in a different light.
There was still power in kindness.