Chapter 28 - Dean
Dean
My body ached from days spent scavenging through flooded stores and waterlogged homes. The stench threatened to stay in my nostrils forever.
Our current stop, a convenience store in a random town, was no exception. A foot of water, mixed with dirt and trash, covered its floor.
Maybe I’d take Lily west to Arizona or Texas. What weather systems did they hold?
Weston stayed near me as we emptied the store shelves, my constant shadow from the moment we left Deer Lake behind eight days ago.
He’d named us the fellowship, referring to some fantasy book.
I didn’t mind. I found my comfort in a particular woman’s body, while his came from fake stories. Not a big deal.
I liked him, despite the constant blathering.
“Where did you learn all this?” Weston asked as he gathered baby supplies. Weston Foster was a scrawny kid, often rambling about old science experiments or model trains. “How did you learn to walk like you do?”
I used his question as a quick break to stretch my back and arms. “Basic training, I guess. General life experience. A guy named Mike once showed me how to siphon gas. Another guy, a different Mike, taught me how to use a bow and arrow. Not much skill with that. How to walk what way?”
“Your stalker walk.”
No one had ever called me a stalker. A kidnapper?
Sure, but only because she’d been asleep when I visited.
“Practice. Defense classes. Exercise. There’s no special rule.
Persistence matters.” I paused, assuming Weston had lost interest. He leaned in, transfixed, so I kept going.
“You want to be a great pie maker? Bake a thousand pies. A great painter? Paint a thousand landscapes. It’s not talent, kid. I don’t have that.”
“Will you teach me some of what you know?”
Disquiet came. An eerie sense of the familiar. “Why now?”
“You did a martial arts move the other day before we left.” He leaned back in a clumsy defensive maneuver.
Water flowed against my calves. A soft object scraped my bare skin. “Tell me why.”
Weston’s cheeks turned an impossible shade of red. “To defend my family.”
“How old are you?”
“Fifteen. I’ll be sixteen in a couple of months.”
Sheriff Eric Gustafson sent a fifteen-year-old kid into this wet hell when he had an army willing to do his bidding?
I glanced outside the convenience store’s door, checking neither of the two slackers had joined us without me noticing. We were alone.
“You volunteered for this?”
“For my sister’s asthma medication. They said I had to.”
“Who said?” I asked, already guessing the answer.
Weston’s body language changed. “Julian did. He said his uncle made me,” he whispered. “Will you teach me to fight?”
I scratched my mouth and neck, pulling my hand away as a thin film of dust formed on my palms. I wiped them on my filthy pants. It didn’t help. “We start tonight, and every day when we get back.”
He nodded, bug-eyed and eager.
“Good, now take these supplies out to the trucks,” I said.
Several kids’ wagons, loaded down with plastic bins and plastic bags, waited to be transferred to two box trucks.
“I need to check on something before we leave,” I said, indicating the open door with my chin. “We finish this, and we go home.”
Weston dragged the wagons out, leaving me alone. I unzipped my jacket halfway to check the plastic bag hiding inside.
Birth control. We wouldn’t need it forever, but we needed it now. I checked the sales racks, smirking at the condoms advertising their extra-large size, before I stuffed the foil packets inside my plastic bag.
The candy aisle caught my attention as I prepared to leave. Several dark chocolate and peanut butter cups, made by a gourmet brand I’d never heard of before, came in their own display box. I grabbed several, adding them to the mix of random trinkets in my plastic bag, and went outside.
A box truck sat parked in the middle of the road, with Weston nowhere in sight and Zeke leaning against the truck, one foot resting against a rear wheel well.
“Where’s the kid?” I asked.
“At the hardware store. I sent him to finish the job since I’m on a break.” Zeke fished a pack of cigarettes from his front pocket and lit one.
A scar at the base of my spine matched the shape of his cigarette. “Smoking kills.”
“So do comets. Only difference is timing.”
“We’re going home tomorrow,” I reminded him. “We can’t do that without everything on our list. Go into that hardware store and finish. It’s not the kid’s job. It’s yours.”
“We’ll get to it.” Zeke looked up at me and flexed his hand. “It’ll get done.”
The cigarette smoke brought back an old memory, one I thought forgotten. My father crying at the kitchen table after my mother died. He’d sat there, smoking cigarettes and slinging back shots of whisky. “You think I’ll take care of you,” he had said to me.
I didn’t understand what he meant at the time; I did now.
“How long has he been your target?” I asked.
Zeke stiffened. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
My teenage shadow, who volunteered to work with me every day. “You’re bullying him. Taking your anger out on someone weaker. The target no one cares about in a town that turns a blind eye. What do you do? Hit him or maybe some kicks?”
Zeke sucked on his cigarette, stalling for time. “You’re insane.”
A sick sister and a desperate need for food made him a perfect victim.
I’d held myself back at Lily’s request. She longed for Deer Lake, so I took her. She wanted to live there, so I tolerated it. I swallowed my rage and my pride since we arrived. This wasn’t Deer Lake. “Okay.”
Zeke took my response as acceptance. He threw his cigarette on the ground and lit another.
I waited for Weston to leave the hardware store, dragging a kid’s wagon filled with goods behind him. Julian was still missing, but he’d find out.
“Have it your way,” I said, and took his free hand, bending the wrist and twisting it behind him.
Zeke cried out.
“Do you feel strong now?” I forced him to his knees and took the lit cigarette dangling from his lips, telling myself it was too far. It didn’t work. I pressed the cigarette to his neck, and the man screamed.
“You don’t hurt him or any member of his family, ever. If I hear otherwise, even a whisper of gossip that you hurt anyone else, I will do so much worse than a single burn.” I aimed my heel at his neck, forcing him down onto the ground, and planted a shoe on the small of his back. “Apologize.”
His words came in a rush, hysterical and high-pitched. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’ll do my work now.”
“Not me. Him.” I pointed at Weston, whose bulging eyes didn’t blink.
Zeke continued in the same pathetic voice. “I’m sorry, Weston. I’ll leave you alone, I promise.”
“That’s better. He accepts your apology.
” I secured his wrists with a zip tie. “Those come off after we return to Deer Lake. No sooner.” A sick idea occurred.
“Weston, bring me the duct tape from under the driver’s seat.
” Weston handed me the half-used roll. It served once before.
Why not again? I tore a piece and covered his mouth.
“Lily won’t find this as amusing as I do.
I’ll still tell her because she deserves to know. ”
Julian and Henry, the older man with arthritic hands, had joined us. Neither showed any surprise, though Henry studied me with appraising eyes.
“We go home tomorrow. Zeke volunteered to spend the night in the rain to guard our supplies. If anyone wants to join him, let me know.”
Julian’s eyes moved between Weston and me. “No problem here.”
No one spoke. “Excellent. Let’s finish because I want to go home.”
Henry continued his uncomfortable observation.
“What?” I snapped at him.
“I knew your father years ago, before your mother died. You reminded me of him.”