July 19th
I was awakened this morning by a sound that I've not heard in so long that it took me a minute to recognize it; a doorbell. I was the only one at home, Pippa was in school, Beth was on duty, and I don't know where Gerry was, he's not on a run again yet. I got out of my makeshift bed and went to answer it in t-shirt and shorts.
I was surprised to find that it was not Tara at the door, but Bishop. He was holding a somewhat scuffed up black Nintendo DSi, “Morning!” he greeted me, and promptly stuck the handheld into my hand.
“Bishop? What are you doing here? Where's your mom or Tara?”
“They're back the house. Mom said I could come alone to give this back to you as long as I stayed where she could see me,” Bishop pointed as he spoke.
I stuck my head out the door and could see Toni standing on the porch of a house on the next block. She waved to me. I waved back a little hesitantly, as I was not fully awake yet.
I flipped the system open, and turned it on. True to his word, the system had a full charge. I started flipping through the system's contents with my fingernail, “Bishop, you can keep this. I don't think the home office is going to be asking for a manual inventory anytime soon.”
“Mom said I should offer to give it back since you only loaned it to me.”
“Well you can tell Toni that I said for you to keep it, along with any games you managed to hold on to.” I opened up the camera, and saw that he had pictures saved on the memory card I had given him with the system, “Did you take pictures with this?”
“Yeah,” he said, seeming proud.
I opened up the pictures and started looking through them. There was a picture of his mom surrounded by hearts and flowers from the graffiti function, a picture of Bryan with his face warped. There were pictures of the inside of Insert Coin, and of Mallville.
“Wow, you took a lot, huh?”
“Yeah. They're all I have of my dad now,” he said evenly. I feel sorry for the kid; he's lost just as much as I have but saeems to be keeping himself together so much better than I did.
“I'm sorry about that,” I said, unsure of what else to say.
“It's okay. I know that we're all going to die eventually. They'll get us all eventually.”
I didn't comment on that, but instead kept flipping through the pictures. There were pictures filled with smoke; I am guessing these are from Christmas Eve. Then there were pictures taken outside, pictures of a house, and of people I did not recognize, although I did see Chris and Molly Trevor in there. They had made it out of Mallville at least.
Some of the pictures were a little disturbing. There were pictures of zeds, some alive and some dead. There was a picture of a puddle of what almost certainly was blood, “Why did you take pictures of all of this?”
“It's what happened,” he said, “Even the sad stuff happened, so it should be remembered.”
If I was stunned by the pictures of the zeds, and bodies, I was amused by pictures of Toni smiling for the camera, or Tara holding a mop handle like a lightsaber. My jaw dropped when I saw a picture of a naked woman holding a washcloth and a bottle of water; the head was cut off, but I knew who it was, “Is this Tara?”
Bishop blushed, “Yeah. You're not mad are you?”
I laughed, “No, but I hope you don't let her find out about it. When did you even take it?”
“She thought I was asleep,” Bishop answered, his cheeks flushing red.
Tara was slim when we were together, but in this picture she looked too thin. her ribcage was visible against her flesh, and the tips of her long brown and silver hair were visible near her breasts. I can only imagine how bad things were for them out there on the road.
I kept going through until I saw one that made me stop. Mixed into Bishop's little photo journal of the end of the world was a picture of Oliver and Tara with their arms around each other. They were smiling and looked happy. Tara's hair was about the same length it is now, and had the same amount of silver in it, ”When did you take this?” I asked, showing him the screen.
Bishop gasped, “I'm sorry! I told Tara I wouldn't tell you about that!” Bishop sounded scared, “Don't be mad.”
“I'm not mad, I just want to know, is this recent?”
Bishop looked down at his shoes, “It's from last week.”
“Are they a couple?”
“Tara said she was lonely without you. She said that you wouldn't want her to be lonely.”
“She was right,” I said, trying to disguise the disappointment in my voice, “I would want her to be as happy as possible.”
“They were arguing last night though. Ollie left before I got up this morning.”
I sighed, and turned off the DSi, “Here, Bishop, you keep this, and don't worry, I won't tell Tara about the pictures, any of them.”
“Thanks,” Bishop said, taking the DSi in both of his hands, “Don't be mad at her, okay?”
“I'm not,” and that was true; I'm not mad at her, just a little sad even though I have no reason or right to be, “Tell your mom I said she should take you to the bookstore across from the park. You are probably dying for something new to read, right?”
Bishop smiled and nodded.
“Okay. It's good seeing you, man. Don't be a stranger, okay?”
I watched Bishop walk down the to the sidewalk back towards where Toni was still waiting. I felt a little dizzy. I was wondering if that was what Tara was coming over to tell me, that there's really no place for us anymore.
I want to think that I would be okay with that, but I don't know. I feel like I'm regressing into the me that Beth doesn't want me to be. I don't want to be that me again either, but Beth is right, it's so much easier when you think you know they're dead.
Tara came over about an hour later. She looked better than yesterday, now dressed in a simple but clean light blue t-shirt and jeans. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and she looked at the same time beautiful and pathetic; so thin and sad looking.
“Hi,” Tara said when I answered the door, now dressed in a t-shirt and jeans myself.
“Hi,” I said, hoping I did not sound as nervous as I felt, “Do you want to come in?”
“Yeah,” she smiled, and leaned in to give me a quick kiss on the cheek. I let her past me into the house, and looked down the street in time to see someone disappear into Tara's house; it had to have been Oliver.
We sat on the couch, and even though part of me wanted to, I did not try and put my arm around Tara. We talked a little, going over how each of us survived again, and how we, at first at least, thought the other hadn't made it.
“You look good,” Tara commented.
“So do you,” I said, and I meant it, mostly. The streaks of silver in her hair do make her look older, but they don't make her look old.
Tara blushed, “I look horrible. I look like an old hag, but you really do look good.”
After some short uncomfortable small talk Tara finally got down to it, “So you and Sharon, huh? Was it what you had hoped it would be?” she sounded sad, but genuine.
“If we had known you were alive we would have looked for you. The only other survivors we saw before leaving Covenant were a couple of guards who wanted to kill us,” I said, leaving out all of the gory details and avoiding the question.
“It's okay, hon, you don't need to explain it to me. I chose to stay with Alex, I couldn't leave him to die alone. I told you to go... I felt so bad for that. I thought I sent you to die,” she started crying.
“I thought I left you to die, so I guess we're even on that.”
“We are even,” Tara looked at her feet as she spoke, “in more ways that one.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, playing dumb.
“You already know what I mean,” she looked up at me, and tears flowed down her face, “I was with someone else too; I felt so alone without you there, I didn't think I would ever find you again, and he said I was beautiful even though I know I'm not.”
“You are,” I said quickly.
Tara smiled through her tears, “I'm not though, I never was beautiful; no butt, no boobs, you were the first man to ever make me feel beautiful since high school, but now I look like a fucking Dachau refugee, and my hair....”
I reached out hesitantly, and placed a hand on her shoulder, “I still think you're beautiful, and I'm sure he meant it too.”
This is exactly how I always ended up in the friend zone with women. I always defend their boyfriends to them, which was never too big a deal with girls other than Sharon. The jerk of the week would end up in her bed, but it was me that ended up screwed.
Okay, she doesn't deserve that.
Tara decided to jump to the chase, “So what do you want to do? Are you seeing someone else?”
“I'm not seeing anyone.”
“Would you want to try again? Do you still have any feelings for me?”
That was a good question. Do I still have those same feelings for her? Was I just hung up on the idea of her, on some idealized memories of her? If she's still with Oliver, would it be right of me to even say I want to try again? Do I want to try again?
Yes. I do.
“I still love you, yes,” I said.
Tara smiled, and wiped her face with her hands, “Even though I'm so old?”
“Pippa didn't mean it like that.”
“She doesn't like me, I could tell.”
“She just needs to get to know you, and, assuming that you still have feelings for me, she will get to.”
“Yes!” Tara practically yelled, “I have thought about you everyday. I have never stopped loving you.”
“But what about...”
“I told you, I was lonely, but I was thinking about you. I wished it was you, I wanted to to be you. Please don't hold that against me.”
Pursuing this line of discussion was going to do nothing but get u into a fight. If she's choosing me over Oliver then there's no reason for me to make it any harder on her than it already is. Bishop said that she and Oliver had been fighting, so I'm sure this is hard enough on her as it is.
“I have something for you,” I said, and got up from the couch.
I went to my bedroom, and opened the cabinet where I had hidden Tara's presents, Sharon's glasses, and the plastic ape, and got the tattered Christmas present and the plush Death Note out. I returned to the living room where I found Tara trying to dry her face against the sleeve of her t-shirt.
“These are for you,” I said, handing her the presents.
“What are these?” Tara asked.
“They're for you; I've been saving them.”
Tara looked at me, and the tears started flowing again, “You've been carrying these with you the whole time?”
“It was like keeping a piece of you with me; I didn't have any pictures or anything. Open them.”
The wrapping paper on the mangas practically fell apart in Tara's hands, and she gasped when she saw the A New Hope books, “Where did you get these?”
Sharon gave them to me for you, she got them when we went to that bookstore; the run where we came back with the coffee. Open the other one.”
Tara set the mangas aside, and started turning the Death Note over in her hand. It took her a few seconds to find the pull for the zipper. She unzipped it slowly, and opened it to reveal the little pewter Vader helmet.
“You need to start rebuilding your Star Wars collection, right?” I asked, smiling at her surprised look.
“You've really been holding on to these for this long just for me? Just to remember me? I don't have anything for you.”
“Being able to actually give them to you is enough,” I said.
She moved the books, tattered paper, plush, and helmet to the coffee table, and stood up. Tara came over to me and put her arms around me, “I love you so much,” she said, and kissed me.
Despite how frail she feels in my arms, she is still pretty strong, and practically threw me onto the couch, where we made love for the next little while. I wish I could say it was magical and that it was like no time had passed since we had last shared a bed, or that it was cautious yet passionate like our first time together but it was neither of those things. It was rushed and desperate, awkward and brief, but it was still kind of magical. It felt good to have Tara in my arms again.
I suppose that part of why it was awkward was that if Sharon was still here, it wouldn't have been happening. Then there's also the fact that someone else who aims for Tara's affections lives just down the street; lives with her. When she went home, she went home to him. Is she still sleeping with him?
When it was over we held each other for a long time. It's amazing how I can, at the same time, feel angry at myself for not being faithful to Sharon while not wanting to ever let Tara out of my grasp again. For her part Tara was clinging to me like I was a life preserver and we were in the middle of the Pacific.
When I was young, I wanted to be more Vulcan and not be controlled by emotions. I thought emotions sucked, and I wanted nothing to do with them. I understand again why I thought that. Emotions do suck and I hate being ruled by them
“Things weren't supposed to be like this, were they?”Tara asked as we lay there.
“What do you mean?”
“We weren't supposed to be serious. We were just together until Alex and Sharon broke up. We were just supposed to be friends, maybe with benefits. I didn't want to fall in love with you.”
“I'm sorry. We don't have to-”
“No, that's not what I mean,” Tara interrupted me, “I just mean I didn't plan on falling for you; I didn't want to be alone. You know that, that was what we agreed on, and it's what happened. I did end up with Alex, if only for a few minutes, and you ended up with Sharon.”
There was a moment of silence. I don't know if she expected me to respond to that, or if she was just gathering her thoughts.
“But now here we are together again, and... and it feels right,” Tara said, “I missed you so much out there, and someday, when I'm ready to, I'll show you how much. I love you.”
“I love you too,'' I said, and that felt right too, even though there was a stab of pain in my chest reminding me how much I love Sharon too.
What would have happened if Sharon hadn't been infected? If Sharon was still here, would Tara try to get back together with me anyway, or would she stay with Oliver? What if she hadn't stayed with Alex? What if she had been with us this whole time? Would things have been better? Worse? Would Toni and Bishop still be alive?
Beth would tell me not to dwell on these things, but as I sit here alone in the night, I cannot keep my mind from drifting to them. Beth would also say I'm being whiny, and that's probably true too. I need to live in the now, not in then, or in what could have been.
Tara and I did get dressed again, but we still lay on the couch just holding each other for a long time. What finally got us up was an air raid siren.
“What's that?” Tara said, suddenly serious.
“I don't know,” I said, and disentangled myself from Tara's thin arms. I rushed back to my room, and grabbed my laptop from where it was sitting plugged in on the desk. I also grabbed the TV tuner and antenna from the top desk drawer, and rushed back to the living room.
I woke the computer from its sleep state, logged in, and plugged in the TV tuner. While the entertainment center software started up, I plugged the antenna into the tuner card. I selected “Television” from the entertainment menu, and an image of the KVMS, channel five news desk appeared.
“-you're hearing are because Doctor Evelyn Byron has issued a city-wide alert,” said the pretty blond anchorwoman, “and she will be speaking with us momentarily.”
“Maybe it's the zeds,” I said absently.
“What?” Tara asked.
“Gerry told me that when he was on his last run, he's on Acquisitions here like he was back home, they had to abort it because they found the biggest single group of zeds he had ever seen, he said it was like a whole city worth of shamblers.”
“For those who are just joining us,” the blond started again, “The sirens you are hearing are because Doctor Evelyn Byron, our town administrator, has issued a citywide alert. We have not been given any details yet, but Doctor Byron will be speaking with us-,” the anchorwoman stopped, and put her hand up to her ear, “We are now going live to the office of Doctor Evelyn Byron.”
The image on my laptop screen changed to shown Doctor Byron, dressed in her white lab coat and an ivory colored blouse, sitting behind her desk in her office, “Hello, citizens of Lovelock. I apologize for startling you all with the siren, but there is something very important that you all need to know about.”
“Many of you already know what I am about to say, but it is important to explain this to those of you who do not.. I was not the original administrator of Lovelock; I took over for a doctor named Xavier Grimm. Xavier was not a bad person, but he made some very dark choices, choices that would not have allowed Lovelock to prosper as it has. This is why he was removed from this office, and I am here instead.”
“Grimm?” Tara asked.
“I've heard about him, not a great guy.”
“Sometime last night, Doctor Xavier Grimm murdered his guards, disabled portions of the underground laboratory security system, and escaped,” Doctor Byron explained.
“He had guards?”
“I think they were to protect him from the people in town as much as to protect us from him,” I said.
“Beth?”
“No, Beth would have said something is she had a detail like that, I know she would.”
“Unfortunately, the guards that Xavier killed reanimated, and attacked three more members of Genetitech staff before they could be put down. Xavier Grimm is now being sought for the murders of these five people. He may still be in town somewhere, if you see him, do not approach him, he is armed, instead notify a member of Genetitech Security so that he may be apprehended.”
Doctor Byron disappeared from the window on my computer and was replaced with an image of a severe looking man with longish greasy brown hair. He looked a little bit like Aragorn from the Lord of the Rings movies. He also looked like he wanted to kill someone, which I suppose he did since he had.
Doctor Byron replaced the still photo of Grimm, “I want to emphasize to everyone that they should not attempt to apprehend Xavier on their own, and I do not want him dead. I will not tolerate any vigilantism! He will be made to answer for his offenses, please trust me on this,” she pleaded, “Do not confront him, do not talk to him, just notify security so that we may take him back into custody before he harms anyone else. Thank you.”
The blond anchorwoman appeared on the screen again, now identified as Marigold Fields (that can't be a real name, can it?). As she started to recap what Doctor Byron had just said, I got up from the couch.
“Where are you going?” Tara asked.
“I'm going to make sure all the doors and windows are locked.”
“Is he really that bad a guy?”
“He killed five people, so I'd say yeah. I was told that he wanted to use people like us in experiments to try and find a cure for the Zed Virus. He wanted to intentionally infect outsiders; I don't know if you've seen what happens to someone who's infected, but it's horrible,” I realized I was on the verge of tears as I said this, so I stopped talking, and left the room.
“I've seen it,” I heard Tara say quietly, just barely audible over the sound of the laptop.
Aside from locking the door, and checking around the house to see that everything else was locked, which unfortunately meant I had to go into Pippa's pigsty of a room. How has she acquired so many clothes? I'm not sure there is even a floor under all of that.
I also took the shotgun we keep in the front hall closet, and placed it next to the door; maybe I'm being paranoid, but no one questioned it when they came home. I know it's somewhat foolish to think that Grimm is going to just knock on the front door and hope we invite him in.
I walked Tara home a short time later, I know that it's only a block, and that I can see her house from mine, and that she is quite capable of taking care of herself, but I couldn't help it. I had to act like the dominant protector male for my own conscience as much as anything else.
I noticed her limping again, something I had forgotten about when we were in the house, “What happened to your leg?” I asked.
“I had a bad fall awhile back,” Tara explained, looking down at her right leg, “and I've been like this ever since. It doesn't hurt anymore, but I still walk like a gimp. Doctor Ellis said I should make an appointment to get it looked at to see if there's anything that can be done for it, but I think the time for fixing it is long past.”
“You should go,” I said, but she didn't respond.
When we arrived at her doorstep, she gave me a quick kiss on the lips, “Thank you for being here for me,” she said.
“Thank you for coming back to me.” I said.
“So don't shoot me when I come over next time, okay?” Tara smiled to show she was half joking.
“I'll try and remember what you look like so I don't confuse you with Grimm.”
Tara kissed me again, and then turned to open the door and found it was locked, “Huh, I guess you're not the only one who's paranoid,” She knocked on the door, and after a few moments we heard movement behind it.
When the door opened, it was only a crack, and I could see Oliver Black looking through it, “Thank God, Tara, where have you been? I've been worried about you.”
“Just let me in Ollie, okay?”
“There's some killer loose in town,” he said, opening the door all the way, and glaring past Tara at me, tried to grab her arm.
Tara dodged his hand, “I know, that's why I have an escort,” she turned to face me, “You be safe, okay?”
“Of course. I'll see you later. I hope you all are comfortable here. Tell Bishop and Toni hi for me.”
Tara smiled at me, and I turned to walk back to the sidewalk. As soon as my back was turned the door slammed shut; by Oliver, no doubt. I could hear the two of them talking through the door, but decided to leave it alone; I don't want to get involved in anymore drama than I already am.
Everyone else did make it home safe; Gerry first followed later by Beth and Pippa, whom Beth had picked up from school in that ridiculous Xebra car. I guess it beats walking though, right?
We grilled Beth for details, but she didn't really have any. She knew one of the guards who had been killed, and was a little upset about that, “If I'm the one who finds that son of a bitch they're going to be taking him in feet first,” she had said.
I ended up having to walk into town to get a ride out to the gate. Beth said she would let me take the Xebra, but that she didn't know if there would be enough battery life to get me home again. I told her that it was okay since she needed it to get to work in the morning herself.
Town was quieter than normal, and Bacchus was closed. There were a lot more Genetitech Security cars driving around too, as if Doctor Grimm is going to be caught just walking down the street like a normal resident. Doctor Byron is really taking this guy seriously.
I wouldn't describe myself as afraid of Grimm, but I'm certainly being more cautious. What if he kills more people, and they rise back up? Can we take on an outbreak in town? Logic says yes, but logically we should have been able to take these things without bringing about the end of the world.
My shift at the gate was uneventful. Samit was not mad about last night, but everyone wanted to know what the relationship between myself and the newcomers is. Barbara even gave me a hug and told me she was happy for me. She's nice, but she is a bit odd.
Time to get some sleep.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Fifty-First Entry: Hello Again
July 18th
Every time I think I start to get a handle on my life, the world changes things for me. Sometimes the changes are good, most often they are not, but sometimes I'm not sure what to make of them. I know what I should think, and what I should feel, and what I would have felt six months ago, but now....
I'm feeling this mixture of relief, love, anxiety, guilt, and worry. Everything I had gotten under control seems like string flapping in the wind again now. I want to be happy, but I feel like a betrayer. I feel like I'm betraying them both, and I don't know what to do about it. Thankfully Beth, Gerry, and Pippa are kind of staying out of it, and letting me figure out how to handle it, although if one of them laid everything out plain then I could just deal with those consequences and move on from there. If only life were that simple, right?
It was at the end of last week; Gerry had just come home early from an acquisition run that had to be aborted due encountering what he described as “a fuck-ton of zombies”. They were working a few towns over, and they ran into a solid wall of roaming shamblers heading straight for them.
“It was like an entire undead city was marching towards us,” Gerry explained to me.
“We could send some of those test weapons out there,” I said.
“We should nuke the entire site from orbit, it's the only way to be sure,” Gerry was trying to be lighthearted about it, but he was clearly rattled. After the fight last Halloween, I don't blame him, just thinking of that hallway full of zeds makes me uneasy, but a whole street full?
I wonder if the scientists are working on nukes, The ultimate price seems like it would be too high; fallout, radiation poisoning, turning the world into Fallout 3, etc. What would be better, death by zed or death by nuke? Some choice.
It was late evening when my world was turned upside down once again. I was at the West gate with Samit, Ciaran, Barbara, and a few others. Ciaran had spent a lot of the evening trying to chat up Barbara, who kept shooting him down mercilessly much to the amusement of the rest of us.
“Why won't you just give me a chance, Barbara? I'm really a great guy if you get to know me.”
“Well,” said Barbara dryly, “You seem like a nice guy, but every guy I've ever met whose told me they are a nice hasn't been. Plus, you don't know how to take no for an answer, and that never ends well.”
“But-” Ciaran decided to try again, but was cut off.
“You might want to give it a rest, Ciaran,” Samit cautioned him, “she has a mean right hook.”
Everyone laughed at that, including Ciaran and Barbara, although Ciraan did flush a bit under the harsh work lights around the gate.
“I think I see something,” called down one of the tower look outs, a guy with the unfortunate name of Jacob Black,” Maybe headlights.”
“Okay, everyone take positions,” said Samit as he walked over to pick up his megaphone from where he had left it on one of the construction walls.
Barbara took cover behind the same wall as me, to the right of the gate, and we both leveled our rifles on the top of the wall.
“Well this is a bit of excitement, isn't it?” Barbara asked me, grinning, “Being on the other side of the ambush and all.”
“I'd hardly call it an ambush,” I said, “We're not really hiding for one thing.”
“Somehow I think you felt differently when you were on the other side of it.”
I shrugged, “Probably, but we have to make sure they're not hostile, you know?”
“You'd shoot?” Barbara asked.
“If it seemed necessary, hell yes.”
“You'd kill another person?” she asked, and I was not sure if she was just surprised that I would do it, or if she found the whole concept repulsive.
“I have had to shoot someone I love,” I said, more sharply than I really meant to, ”so shooting someone who thinks they are going to threaten my family and my home won't even require me to think twice anymore.”
Barbara shrunk back a little, “Wow,” she said, “I'm not judging you, you know? You just don't seem like the Rambo type.”
“You've been hanging out with Beth and Gerry whenever they're free, how do you not know that I've killed people? They didn't tell you about the Postmen?”
“We don't talk about the past much, it's not one of my favorite subjects, and they haven't volunteered a lot.” Barbara said a little sadly, and then, “You killed mailmen?”
Before I could answer, Samit started calling through the bullhorn. I was so busy talking to Barbara that I hadn't noticed the car's approach, which I really should have as it was a loud old beige Oldsmobile that looked like it had been driven through a wall.
“Stop the car!” Samit bellowed through the speaker when the car was a few hundred feet away.
The Oldsmobile creaked to a halt.
“Turn off the engine, and step out of the vehicle! Keep your hands where we can see them, and you will not be harmed!” Samit commanded.
There were a few tense seconds where nothing happened, and then the car's engine died. The driver's door creaked open, and a woman's voice called out faintly in the renewed stillness of the night.
“We're getting out! We have a child with us, don't shoot!” the voice called, and it was one I knew.
“I'm not a child!” I heard a boy's voice say.
The other three doors of the car opened with similar creaking as the first, and four figures got out of the car, They were all thin, and one of them was indeed a kid, just on the verge of his teenage years. Two of the people were women, and the last was a man who was muscular despite his thinness, and I realized that I knew three of them.
I lowered my rifle, setting it against the construction wall.
“What are you doing?” Barbara hissed.
My heart was pounding in my chest, “They're alive,” I whispered.
“I should hope so. The day the ghouls learn to drive we're all fucked.”
“I thought they were dead,” I turned to look at Barbara, “I know them, well three of them.”
I stood up, and walked out from behind the wall, “Where are you going? Get back here!” Barbara said.
I started walking towards the car, “Tara?” I called, “Bishop? Toni?”
“Get back in your position,” ordered Samit, his mouth away from the bullhorn's mouthpiece.
“I know them!” I told him as I passed, now at a gentle jog, “Don't shoot, I know them.
The driver, Tara, my Tara, thin, her hair now streaked with silver, and wearing a denim shirt that I would never have imagined her in, called my name questioningly in return, and started forward from the driver's door of the Oldsmobile. She was limping with her left leg.
“Cover him, but don't shoot!” Samit ordered the others as I moved away from them.
Tara met me about three quarters of the way to the car, “Is it really you?”she asked, and then threw her arms around me before I could answer.
I was afraid to hold her too tightly. She felt so fragile in my arms, but also so familiar. My mind was racing; I had cheated on her, but I had thought she was dead. What happens now? Do we pick up where we left off? Do I tell her Sharon and I got married? Do I push her away? Is she even still interested in me like that?
Tara answered the last question for me by pulling out of my arms and then kissing me full on the lips. I won't lie, her breath was horrible, but her kiss brought memories flooding back to me, and the first time in longer than I can remember, I started to cry.
Tara saw the tears start to pour out of my eyes, and her eyes started to water up too. She grabbed me in another hug, and together we wept. In that moment I was not crying just because she was still alive and in my arms again, but because of everything I should have cried about in the last eight months.
I cried about losing Tara, and Sharon, and Maria I cried about losing Mallville as my home. I cried about killing Merritt Sokolenko. I cried for Milton, and Rupert, and Alex. I cried for Sharon's illness, and her recovery, and her telling me she loved me, and for shooting her in the head, and for burying her.
I cried for all of the pain, and fear, and misery I've felt since last Halloween; I cried for all the happiness and love I've felt since then too, and in those couple of minutes of crying it was like a lead weight that had been implanted in my heart was suddenly gone. A heaviness I have felt for so long now that I had pretty much forgotten was there was suddenly gone, and even though I now face a new series of problems and questions, in that moment I felt like my old self.
“I thought you were dead,” I said, breaking our embrace again, “I thought you died in the explosion.”
“I was still upstairs when it happened,” Tara explained, “but I knew you guys made it out, I just never thought I would find you.... Are you all here?”
I shook my head sadly, “No, Maria and... and Sharon didn't make it. It's just me, Gerry, and Beth.”
Tara wiped the tears from her face, “Oh God,” she said, “I'm sorry.”
Behind Tara I could see Toni and Bishop Rogers standing with man I did not know. It looked like Bishop wanted to come join us, but Toni was holding him back.
“Did,” Tara swallows hard, and started her question again, “Did you and Sharon ever...?
I could have lied, but I know that would just have caused more problems later. Besides, Tara deserves better than that from me, “Yes,” I said quietly, “I didn't know you were alive, we both thought you were dead, and Sharon was sick, and she got better, and it just sort of happened,” I rambled, hoping she wouldn't ask for details.
Tara looked hurt for a moment, and then took my right hand in hers. She was thinking for what seemed like an eternity, but what must have only been seconds, with my hand clutched in hers, “I don't-” she started and stopped, “I... Is... Do...?”
She was crying again, and I knew what she wanted to ask, but I couldn't say it either. I was speechless.
Finally Tara managed to form a full question, “Is there still room in your heart for me? I know I'm not her, and I know it was our agreement that if you ever got the chance, you could, but is there anything left of us? Do you still love me?”
“If you had been with us, everything would have been different,” I told her, “If I had even know you made it out, things would have been different. You have always been in my heart.”
That was no lie; I can only begin to imagine how things would have been different, but they certainly would have. I try not to think about stuff like that anymore, there's nothing to be gained by it.
“So... you want to try again?” she asked, as if we had broken up for a short period of time instead of each thinking that the other was dead.
At that moment I didn't know what I wanted. God had answered a prayer, and I didn't know how to react to it. Would I be disrespecting Sharon's memory? One thing I now knew for sure was that all of those dreams I had were just my own subconscious bullshit, not messages from beyond.
“Yes,” I said, “I would like that.”
She pulled me to her again, and we held each other for awhile longer before Samit, apparently tired of being ignored, interrupted us with the bullhorn.
“I'm glad you guys are reunited and all, but if we can follow standard procedure, you'll have plenty of time to catch up later,” Samit sounded a little annoyed, but also embarrassed to be witnessing the whole thing.
Transport was summoned, and our escorts turned out to be Justin Lassit and a female officer named Melissa Elroy. I was allowed to ride to the hospital with Tara, Bishop, Toni, and the man that was with them, who I learned was named Oliver Gusteneaux. Oliver, or Ollie as he prefers to be called, is also from Mallville.
On the van ride to the hospital Tara gave me a quick overview of what happened on Christmas Eve. She stayed with Alex until he passed, and then decided that she should at least try to save the Trevors and the Rogers. Insert Coin wasn't far from where Alex had been shot, so she started that way, and then the explosion happened.
Tara told me that the explosion knocked her off of her feet, and when she looked back, the area where our firefight had happened was nothing more than a blazing inferno. She thought that we had all been killed in that explosion. She was shocked when I told her that Jimmy did it.
Continuing on to Insert Coin, Tara found that the fighting had passed on from there, and that the Trevor's, the Rogers, and a few others had closed themselves up inside the store to try and stay out of it, but Bryan had been shot; he didn't make it.
They stayed inside the store overnight, and Tara led the other survivors out in the morning before getting completely overwhelmed by the zeds, picking up anyone they came across on the way. They fled Mallville on foot through an out door that had had its gate rolled up by someone for some unknown reason.
“We hid out in Covenant during the winter. We stuck mostly to the suburbs, because I knew we hadn't done much scavenging there,” Tara explained to me, “There were almost twenty of us at first, but some wanted to go their own ways, and some... some didn't make it.
“We ran into your friend with the chainsaw, Ash. He said that he had seen you guys, that all of you had made it out, and were heading north, but he couldn't remember where you had said you were going. I was afraid I'd never see you again.”
“I suggested we try for here,” Toni told me, “I mean, we didn't know what to do, but once it started to warm up and the zombies came back in force; well, we had to leave. I knew that Genetitech would have a disaster plan if anyone did, and was hoping that maybe there was still something here.”
That's why the name Lovelock sounded familiar to me! Toni and Bryan had told me they were from here. She had been the meteorologist on one of the TV stations. I wondered if it was the one that was still running.
“It seemed like as good a place as any to try for in any case, so we've been on the road until tonight,” Tara said, “Is this place really safe?”
“Safer than Mallville was,” I said, “Doctor Byron, you're going to be meeting her, she's odd, but she's really nice, and she really seems to care about everyone in town. I'm sure she will welcome you guys.”
When we arrived, Justin escorted us up to Doctor Byron's office. Polly's desk was vacant due to the hour, but Doctor Byron's door was sitting open, light streaming out of her office.
“Please, come on it,” Doctor Byron called, as if she psychically knew that we were there. I took me a second to realize that she must have been following our progress through the hospital on the security cameras.
Justin led us into Doctor Byron's office, and just like the first time I met her, she was sitting behind her desk in her lab coat (although she wore a dark blue blouse under it this time, making her pale skin seem even paler) as if it were perfectly normal for her to still be working this late in the evening. Then again, maybe it is; there's no reason she couldn't play Seventh City from here.
“Thank you, Justin,” Doctor Byron said once we were all inside her office, “I will escort them from here.”
“Yes, Doctor,” Justin said smartly, and turned to leave.
“So these are friends of yours?” Doctor Byron asked me.
“Yes, Doctor, they are from Covenant as well.”
“From Mallville?” She asked.
“Yes.”
“That is marvelous!” Doctor Byron exclaimed, “This is the first time we've had anyone be reunited here. Well, let's get on with what we need to, and then we can get you all to our physicals, and to your new home, provided of course that you want to stay.”
“I'll wait out here, if that's okay, Doctor” I said motioning to the outer office.
“Of course, I wouldn't expect you to leave,” Doctor Byron said in her normal dreamy voice, “but I still wish you would call me Evie outside the game as well.”
Tara gave me a questioning look, but there'll time to explain that later.
I took a seat on the couch in the outer office by the window. It seems so amazing to me to look out over a town now and see it lit up like the world used to be. It's not the same as the view from Alisdair's bell tower, but it is just as beautiful in its own way.
I took off my sword and satchel, pulled out my journal, and have been writing since then. When food was brought up for the rest of them, the nurse that brought it (I did not see her name tag) brought me some as well.
“Doctor Byron thought you might be hungry as well,” the nurse explained.
It was the same tofu salad that we had when we first arrived, and it brought back the memory my first night here, and I started crying a little again. I hope I'm not going to be all weepy like this from now on. I think I may have liked being unable to cry better.
They've been in there for well over an hour now, but I guess we were in there for a long time when we first arrived too. I hope someone told Pippa, Beth, and Gerry where I am so they don't worry; I should actually have been home a little while ago.
I think I'll play some solitaire while I wait. To think, people used to mock me for keeping playing cards in my bag. You should always be prepared because you never know when nothing is going to be happening.
So thirty minutes of playing solitaire later, Doctor Byron leads Tara and the others out of her office. I quickly put on my sword and satchel and followed them out into the hallways and down to the same part of the hospital that she took my group to when we first arrived.
Maybe he was just tired, or maybe it's just because he doesn't know me, but I noticed Ollie kept looking at me oddly as we walked. Tara walked next to me, but she did not try to hold my hand or anything.
“I've still got your DSi,” Bishop told me, “It's in the car, and it still works.”
“How have you been using it?”
“I charged it up when we were driving in cars. I took one of the car charger kits before we left the store. Is that okay?”
I almost facepalmed. Why hadn't I thought of that?
“Yeah, that's fine. It's not like I'm ever going back to the store again,” I said, “You keep it, just take care of it, okay? “
The curly haired Doctor Ellis was waiting for us at the same nurse's station as before, but instead of waiting with Doctor Selznick, she was waiting with Doctor David Phillips, a broad shouldered doctor with short black hair. The two of them were playing cards.
“Well it's about time,” Doctor Ellis said in what had to at least be partly mock annoyance.
“You pulled us out of poker night for this,” Doctor Phillips added, also seeming to be at least partially joking.
“I will leave you to your examinations, and arrange for your new living accommodations,” said Doctor Byron, “I assure you that you are in capable hands.”
“Come on,” said Doctor Phillips, abandoning his cards on the counter top, “Let's see how healthy you all are.”
Doctors Phillips and Ellis led the others down the hall to the examination rooms, and Doctor Byron pulled me aside, “We need to talk.”
I got worried, as it was the first time I'd ever seen her looking really focused and serious, “Yes, ma'am,”
“You're not in any sort of trouble, so calm down,” she said, reading the look on my face, “You and Tara had a relationship before, is that correct?”
“Yes, Doctor.”
“Does she know about you and,” she had to pause to think for a second, “Sharon, correct?”
“Yes, Doctor, her name was Sharon,” I answered, “and sort of. I told her that Sharon and I did have a relationship after we left Mallville, but I didn't tell her we were married.”
“Do you think the two of you will try and resume your relationship now?”
“I don't know... probably.”
Doctor Byron nodded, “Psychology is not my specialty, but I would suggest you get everything out in the open as soon as possible; both of you. I really don't have a lot of experience with relationships, but I do know that secrets will come back to haunt you later.”
“Yes, Doctor.”
“Don't look so worried, I'm sure you'll do the right thing. Your friends hold you in too high of esteem for you to not be that kind of person.”
“My friends?”
“Beth, Gerry, Pippa, even young Bishop there seems to have a high opinion of you. I think the only person you know who doesn't respect you is you, but it seems like you are doing better. I still think some counseling would do you good though,” Doctor Byron looked at me curiously, “However, I am still not going to force you. Now if you will excuse me, I do have a little more work to do before turning in today. I do like it when new people come to town.”
With that, Doctor Byron patted me on the shoulder, turned, and pressed the button for the elevator. When the doors opened, she turned, stepped in, pressed a button and a gave me a finger twiddling wave as the doors closed.
Left alone again, I went to the waiting area that I met Gerry, Beth, and Pippa in after our own doctor's exams. Did it take this long for our check-ups? Does this mean that there is something wrong with them? They did look thinner than we did when we got to town.
I'm at home now. Shortly after I wrote the last paragraph I heard footsteps coming down the hall towards me. It was Gerry, Beth, and Pippa.
“Is it true?” Gerry asked, “Is Tara really here?”
“Yes, she's been alive all this time,” I answered.
“Wow, that is great!” Gerry said, smiling wide.
“Are you okay?” Beth asked.
“Yeah, why?”
Beth looked at me like I said something stupid, “Why do you think? Your old girlfriend, one of the people you have been pining over since we got here, suddenly turns up and you wonder why I'm asking if you're okay?”
“I'm fine.”
“Did you tell her? About you and Sharon I mean?” Gerry asked.
“I told her that we were together until....”
“Bet you didn't tell her you got married,” Pippa said, almost a little cruelly.
“No, but I will when it seems right.”
“I'll tell her!” Pippa volunteered.
“You will not,” Beth snapped, “The three of us are going to keep our mouths shut, do you understand?”
“Yes, Beth, but-”
“No buts!” then to me, “You need to tell her, especially if you are going to try and pick up from where you left off,” she seemed annoyed. In fact, Gerry is the only one who seemed genuinely happy for me, but then he's also the only one who really was around me when Tara and I were together.
Before I could ask Beth why she seemed upset, a door opened down the hall, and Tara came out of one of the examination rooms, “Gerry? Beth?” she asked, seeing them, “You're really here!”
Tara tried to run down the hall towards us, but it was more of a fast limp. When she got to where we were all standing she gave both Beth and Gerry hugs, and stroked each of their faces.
“Oh my God,” Tara enthused, “It's so good to see you guys.”
“It's good to see you too, Tara,” Beth said, she looked and sounded genuine; all signs of her previous annoyance were gone.
“I'm sorry to hear about Maria,” Tara said to Gerry.
“She went out on her own terms. I can only pray that we all get to do that,” Gerry said. It was the first time I'd heard him say something like that. In fact it's probably the first time I've heard him mention Maria in over a month.
“And who is this?” Tara asked, looking at Pippa.
“This is Pippa Webster,” I said, “She joined up with us a few months back. Pippa, this is Tara Lafferty.”
“It's nice to meet you,” Pippa said in a voice far less convincing than the one she used a couple of weeks back when she said she wanted to meet Tara, but thought she was dead, “So you two were an item? You're like old enough to- Ow! What the hell?”
Beth had kicked Pippa in the shin. “Pippa sometimes doesn't think before acting,” Beth explained.
“That's fine. I'm sure I must look awful,” Beth had failed her saving throw; Tara had instantly gone into her ice-queen mode, and was looking at Pippa funny, “There's not a lot of hotels with hot showers and all-you-can-eat buffets open out there anymore.”
“You do look like you've had a rough time out there,” Beth agreed, trying to defrost Tara, “but I'm sure a nice hot bath and a few days of regular meals and sleeping in a bed will fix you right up.”
You know what I realized at that point? Beth was like the mom to our group. If I am Pippa's brother then Beth is our mom. She has spent so much of the last seven months trying to keep us all going, mediate fights, and just generally keep us from splitting up or killing each other, and I had never once thanked her for it. I am a real asshole sometimes.
Tara softened a little, “Yes, It'll be nice. Is it true that the whole town has power and water?”
“Yes, and local internet, and TV, and alcohol.”
“Doctor Byron told us about the TV station; apparently it's the one that Toni worked at. Maybe she'll be able to get her job back.” Tara said,
We talked while we waited for the others to come out. Tara made sure that everybody was introduced to everybody else, but she never fully warmed up, and she kept looking at Pippa, who didn't say much of anything the rest of the time.
Bishop was the next one out of his examination, followed by his mom, who gave me a hug when she joined us. I had to introduce her to Gerry and Beth as well as Pippa as she didn't know either of them from Mallville. Oliver was the last one to join us.
Of course if Pippa and Tara kept trading odd glances at each other, then Oliver, who was also kept pretty quiet, was trying to drill a hole through me with his eyes. Is there something between him and Tara? Is there nothing, but he wants there to be something? I have no right to be jealous or suspicious, but that doesn't stop me from being a bit of both.
It doesn't help that Ollie is blond haired, blue eyed, handsome, and well-muscled as opposed to my rather less impressive build. I may not be fat anymore, but even as thin as he is he looks like he stepped out of a lifeguard calendar, as where I look like I stepped out of the Think Geek catalog.
Shortly after the examinations were over, a blondish Genetitech Security officer, who Beth greeted as Ben, arrived to take Tara and her group to their new home. He led them back towards the elevators.
Before leaving, Tara gave me a hug and a quick kiss on the cheek, “Can we talk tomorrow?” she asked.
“Of course,” I said, “I'm sure we have a lot to catch up on.”
Tara smiled, “We do. I missed you so much, you don't know how it feels to find out you are here and still alive. I keep expecting to wake up from this dream,” she hugged me again, “You have a good night then, I'll see you tomorrow.”
Once Tara, Toni, Bishop, and Oliver were gone, Beth let out a weary sigh, “Okay, lets go home.”
“Beth got a car!” Pippa said happily.
“A car? How did you do that?”
“Don't be so impressed. I just filled out some forms and was issued one. Trust me, it's nothing to be impressed by.”
Beth was right. The car was anything but impressive. It looked like an older white 4 door compact car, except that it only had three wheels in a tricycle configuration. The markings on it identified it as a Zapcar Xebra, and that it was property of Genetitech Laboratories. I had seen a couple of them around town, but never paid them too much attention.
“Umm, wow,” I said, trying to not sound underwhelmed.
“Yup,” Beth agreed, “She's fully electric, has a top speed of about 38 miles an hour, and barely enough battery to get us home with. See why I said not to be too impressed?”
“I didn't know these things even existed outside of shows on The Discovery Channel before we got here.”
“I don't think most people knew, but hey, if it gets us around Mayberry, right?” Gerry said.
I shared the backseat with Pippa, cramming my satchel in my lap, and my sword on the floor between my legs. Not all that comfortable, but it beats walking home; it was kind of cold tonight.
“You dated her before Sharon?” Pippa asked as we drove.
“Yes,” I said, “Sharon was seeing a man named Alex, who was Tara's boss. Tara and I started hanging out, and things went from there. You know all of this.”
“But she's old!” Pippa exclaimed.
“She's a few years older than me, yeah, but she's not old.” I said.
“She has gray hair!”
“She didn't then,” I explained.
“She's too old for you, you should find someone your age.”
“She's the same age as me, Pippa,” Beth commented from the front seat.
“No way! She looks like she's in her forties! You still look young.”
“What about me, do I look young?” Gerry asked, trying to keep things light.
“Be nice to her, Pippa,” I said.
“I liked Sharon better.”
That hurt me. I turned to look out the window as my newfound tears threatened to break free again. I wanted to say a lot of things; things like, “You don't even know her.” and “Well Sharon's gone!” and “Shut the fuck up!”, but instead I didn't say anything.
“Pippa, leave it alone, please,” Beth said, “Don't make me stop this car.”
“I'm just saying-”
“Pippa!” Beth snapped.
The rest of the trip was made in silence.
When we got home, Beth pulled the Xebra into the garage, and plugged it in while the rest of us went into the house. Pippa went to her room without a word, but Gerry stopped to talk to me.
“What are you gonna do?” he asked.
“I don't know; just wait and see what happens, I guess.”
“If you want to get back together with her, don't wait. You already know what happens when you wait.”
“Yeah, Gerry, I do.”
Gerry patted me on the shoulder, and then went to his room. I waited for Beth to come in.
“Beth?” I said as she tried to pass me on the way to her bedroom.
“What?” she said, sounding tired and annoyed.
“I just wanted to thank you.”
Beth's expression changed to one of puzzlement, “For what?”
“For being there for me.”
“For coming to pick you up? It's not a big deal, I wanted to see her too.”
“No, in general. I realized tonight how much work you put in to keeping us all together, and thought I should thank you. You seemed like you needed some attention.”
Beth smiled, “You guys are my family. You're all I have, and I know you understand that. I'm sorry if I seemed a little short earlier, Tara just worries me.”
“Why? You don't like her?”
“I like the her I know, but none of us are the same person we were last year. What if she's changed? What if she hurts you? What if you hurt her? You got married while you thought she was dead, so what was she doing during that time? How is she going to react when you tell her the details about you and Sharon?”
“I'm just happy knowing she's alive; I'll be fine whatever happens.”
“Will you?” Beth took a breath, steeling herself for what she would say next, “This is going to sound bad, so please forgive me. The person I lost in all of this, back at the start, it is easier for me to know that they are dead than it would be if... this person was up walking around, living in this town, and weren't with me anymore. Now you're a strong person-”
“No, I'm not,”
“Stop that! You are strong, but I don't know if you're that strong. Whatever happens, just please don't go back to the way you were in June.”
“I will be fine, I promise you.”
Beth nodded, “Just be careful with your heart and hers. I'm going to get some sleep. You should too.”
“I will soon,” I said.
“I know, after you write it all down in your diary,” Beth gave me a quick hug, ”I'll see you in the morning.”
So is Beth right? Have Tara and I changed too much to be compatible anymore? Is she in a relationship with Oliver? Is that why she was shooting daggers with his eyes? Am I just setting myself up for more pain?
I'm on the late shift again tomorrow, so I guess I'll have all day to talk things over with Tara. Whatever becomes of it, I will not go back to being mopey and depressed. Things are as good as they are ever likely to get for me again right now, and I am not going to squander that.
Even here in Lovelock I could still die tomorrow, or next week, or next month. I may not see another Halloween or Christmas, and I am not going to spend anymore time feeling sorry for myself; I am not going to waste even one more day being miserable.
Whatever happens tomorrow with Tara, I will survive.
Hey, hey.
Every time I think I start to get a handle on my life, the world changes things for me. Sometimes the changes are good, most often they are not, but sometimes I'm not sure what to make of them. I know what I should think, and what I should feel, and what I would have felt six months ago, but now....
I'm feeling this mixture of relief, love, anxiety, guilt, and worry. Everything I had gotten under control seems like string flapping in the wind again now. I want to be happy, but I feel like a betrayer. I feel like I'm betraying them both, and I don't know what to do about it. Thankfully Beth, Gerry, and Pippa are kind of staying out of it, and letting me figure out how to handle it, although if one of them laid everything out plain then I could just deal with those consequences and move on from there. If only life were that simple, right?
It was at the end of last week; Gerry had just come home early from an acquisition run that had to be aborted due encountering what he described as “a fuck-ton of zombies”. They were working a few towns over, and they ran into a solid wall of roaming shamblers heading straight for them.
“It was like an entire undead city was marching towards us,” Gerry explained to me.
“We could send some of those test weapons out there,” I said.
“We should nuke the entire site from orbit, it's the only way to be sure,” Gerry was trying to be lighthearted about it, but he was clearly rattled. After the fight last Halloween, I don't blame him, just thinking of that hallway full of zeds makes me uneasy, but a whole street full?
I wonder if the scientists are working on nukes, The ultimate price seems like it would be too high; fallout, radiation poisoning, turning the world into Fallout 3, etc. What would be better, death by zed or death by nuke? Some choice.
It was late evening when my world was turned upside down once again. I was at the West gate with Samit, Ciaran, Barbara, and a few others. Ciaran had spent a lot of the evening trying to chat up Barbara, who kept shooting him down mercilessly much to the amusement of the rest of us.
“Why won't you just give me a chance, Barbara? I'm really a great guy if you get to know me.”
“Well,” said Barbara dryly, “You seem like a nice guy, but every guy I've ever met whose told me they are a nice hasn't been. Plus, you don't know how to take no for an answer, and that never ends well.”
“But-” Ciaran decided to try again, but was cut off.
“You might want to give it a rest, Ciaran,” Samit cautioned him, “she has a mean right hook.”
Everyone laughed at that, including Ciaran and Barbara, although Ciraan did flush a bit under the harsh work lights around the gate.
“I think I see something,” called down one of the tower look outs, a guy with the unfortunate name of Jacob Black,” Maybe headlights.”
“Okay, everyone take positions,” said Samit as he walked over to pick up his megaphone from where he had left it on one of the construction walls.
Barbara took cover behind the same wall as me, to the right of the gate, and we both leveled our rifles on the top of the wall.
“Well this is a bit of excitement, isn't it?” Barbara asked me, grinning, “Being on the other side of the ambush and all.”
“I'd hardly call it an ambush,” I said, “We're not really hiding for one thing.”
“Somehow I think you felt differently when you were on the other side of it.”
I shrugged, “Probably, but we have to make sure they're not hostile, you know?”
“You'd shoot?” Barbara asked.
“If it seemed necessary, hell yes.”
“You'd kill another person?” she asked, and I was not sure if she was just surprised that I would do it, or if she found the whole concept repulsive.
“I have had to shoot someone I love,” I said, more sharply than I really meant to, ”so shooting someone who thinks they are going to threaten my family and my home won't even require me to think twice anymore.”
Barbara shrunk back a little, “Wow,” she said, “I'm not judging you, you know? You just don't seem like the Rambo type.”
“You've been hanging out with Beth and Gerry whenever they're free, how do you not know that I've killed people? They didn't tell you about the Postmen?”
“We don't talk about the past much, it's not one of my favorite subjects, and they haven't volunteered a lot.” Barbara said a little sadly, and then, “You killed mailmen?”
Before I could answer, Samit started calling through the bullhorn. I was so busy talking to Barbara that I hadn't noticed the car's approach, which I really should have as it was a loud old beige Oldsmobile that looked like it had been driven through a wall.
“Stop the car!” Samit bellowed through the speaker when the car was a few hundred feet away.
The Oldsmobile creaked to a halt.
“Turn off the engine, and step out of the vehicle! Keep your hands where we can see them, and you will not be harmed!” Samit commanded.
There were a few tense seconds where nothing happened, and then the car's engine died. The driver's door creaked open, and a woman's voice called out faintly in the renewed stillness of the night.
“We're getting out! We have a child with us, don't shoot!” the voice called, and it was one I knew.
“I'm not a child!” I heard a boy's voice say.
The other three doors of the car opened with similar creaking as the first, and four figures got out of the car, They were all thin, and one of them was indeed a kid, just on the verge of his teenage years. Two of the people were women, and the last was a man who was muscular despite his thinness, and I realized that I knew three of them.
I lowered my rifle, setting it against the construction wall.
“What are you doing?” Barbara hissed.
My heart was pounding in my chest, “They're alive,” I whispered.
“I should hope so. The day the ghouls learn to drive we're all fucked.”
“I thought they were dead,” I turned to look at Barbara, “I know them, well three of them.”
I stood up, and walked out from behind the wall, “Where are you going? Get back here!” Barbara said.
I started walking towards the car, “Tara?” I called, “Bishop? Toni?”
“Get back in your position,” ordered Samit, his mouth away from the bullhorn's mouthpiece.
“I know them!” I told him as I passed, now at a gentle jog, “Don't shoot, I know them.
The driver, Tara, my Tara, thin, her hair now streaked with silver, and wearing a denim shirt that I would never have imagined her in, called my name questioningly in return, and started forward from the driver's door of the Oldsmobile. She was limping with her left leg.
“Cover him, but don't shoot!” Samit ordered the others as I moved away from them.
Tara met me about three quarters of the way to the car, “Is it really you?”she asked, and then threw her arms around me before I could answer.
I was afraid to hold her too tightly. She felt so fragile in my arms, but also so familiar. My mind was racing; I had cheated on her, but I had thought she was dead. What happens now? Do we pick up where we left off? Do I tell her Sharon and I got married? Do I push her away? Is she even still interested in me like that?
Tara answered the last question for me by pulling out of my arms and then kissing me full on the lips. I won't lie, her breath was horrible, but her kiss brought memories flooding back to me, and the first time in longer than I can remember, I started to cry.
Tara saw the tears start to pour out of my eyes, and her eyes started to water up too. She grabbed me in another hug, and together we wept. In that moment I was not crying just because she was still alive and in my arms again, but because of everything I should have cried about in the last eight months.
I cried about losing Tara, and Sharon, and Maria I cried about losing Mallville as my home. I cried about killing Merritt Sokolenko. I cried for Milton, and Rupert, and Alex. I cried for Sharon's illness, and her recovery, and her telling me she loved me, and for shooting her in the head, and for burying her.
I cried for all of the pain, and fear, and misery I've felt since last Halloween; I cried for all the happiness and love I've felt since then too, and in those couple of minutes of crying it was like a lead weight that had been implanted in my heart was suddenly gone. A heaviness I have felt for so long now that I had pretty much forgotten was there was suddenly gone, and even though I now face a new series of problems and questions, in that moment I felt like my old self.
“I thought you were dead,” I said, breaking our embrace again, “I thought you died in the explosion.”
“I was still upstairs when it happened,” Tara explained, “but I knew you guys made it out, I just never thought I would find you.... Are you all here?”
I shook my head sadly, “No, Maria and... and Sharon didn't make it. It's just me, Gerry, and Beth.”
Tara wiped the tears from her face, “Oh God,” she said, “I'm sorry.”
Behind Tara I could see Toni and Bishop Rogers standing with man I did not know. It looked like Bishop wanted to come join us, but Toni was holding him back.
“Did,” Tara swallows hard, and started her question again, “Did you and Sharon ever...?
I could have lied, but I know that would just have caused more problems later. Besides, Tara deserves better than that from me, “Yes,” I said quietly, “I didn't know you were alive, we both thought you were dead, and Sharon was sick, and she got better, and it just sort of happened,” I rambled, hoping she wouldn't ask for details.
Tara looked hurt for a moment, and then took my right hand in hers. She was thinking for what seemed like an eternity, but what must have only been seconds, with my hand clutched in hers, “I don't-” she started and stopped, “I... Is... Do...?”
She was crying again, and I knew what she wanted to ask, but I couldn't say it either. I was speechless.
Finally Tara managed to form a full question, “Is there still room in your heart for me? I know I'm not her, and I know it was our agreement that if you ever got the chance, you could, but is there anything left of us? Do you still love me?”
“If you had been with us, everything would have been different,” I told her, “If I had even know you made it out, things would have been different. You have always been in my heart.”
That was no lie; I can only begin to imagine how things would have been different, but they certainly would have. I try not to think about stuff like that anymore, there's nothing to be gained by it.
“So... you want to try again?” she asked, as if we had broken up for a short period of time instead of each thinking that the other was dead.
At that moment I didn't know what I wanted. God had answered a prayer, and I didn't know how to react to it. Would I be disrespecting Sharon's memory? One thing I now knew for sure was that all of those dreams I had were just my own subconscious bullshit, not messages from beyond.
“Yes,” I said, “I would like that.”
She pulled me to her again, and we held each other for awhile longer before Samit, apparently tired of being ignored, interrupted us with the bullhorn.
“I'm glad you guys are reunited and all, but if we can follow standard procedure, you'll have plenty of time to catch up later,” Samit sounded a little annoyed, but also embarrassed to be witnessing the whole thing.
Transport was summoned, and our escorts turned out to be Justin Lassit and a female officer named Melissa Elroy. I was allowed to ride to the hospital with Tara, Bishop, Toni, and the man that was with them, who I learned was named Oliver Gusteneaux. Oliver, or Ollie as he prefers to be called, is also from Mallville.
On the van ride to the hospital Tara gave me a quick overview of what happened on Christmas Eve. She stayed with Alex until he passed, and then decided that she should at least try to save the Trevors and the Rogers. Insert Coin wasn't far from where Alex had been shot, so she started that way, and then the explosion happened.
Tara told me that the explosion knocked her off of her feet, and when she looked back, the area where our firefight had happened was nothing more than a blazing inferno. She thought that we had all been killed in that explosion. She was shocked when I told her that Jimmy did it.
Continuing on to Insert Coin, Tara found that the fighting had passed on from there, and that the Trevor's, the Rogers, and a few others had closed themselves up inside the store to try and stay out of it, but Bryan had been shot; he didn't make it.
They stayed inside the store overnight, and Tara led the other survivors out in the morning before getting completely overwhelmed by the zeds, picking up anyone they came across on the way. They fled Mallville on foot through an out door that had had its gate rolled up by someone for some unknown reason.
“We hid out in Covenant during the winter. We stuck mostly to the suburbs, because I knew we hadn't done much scavenging there,” Tara explained to me, “There were almost twenty of us at first, but some wanted to go their own ways, and some... some didn't make it.
“We ran into your friend with the chainsaw, Ash. He said that he had seen you guys, that all of you had made it out, and were heading north, but he couldn't remember where you had said you were going. I was afraid I'd never see you again.”
“I suggested we try for here,” Toni told me, “I mean, we didn't know what to do, but once it started to warm up and the zombies came back in force; well, we had to leave. I knew that Genetitech would have a disaster plan if anyone did, and was hoping that maybe there was still something here.”
That's why the name Lovelock sounded familiar to me! Toni and Bryan had told me they were from here. She had been the meteorologist on one of the TV stations. I wondered if it was the one that was still running.
“It seemed like as good a place as any to try for in any case, so we've been on the road until tonight,” Tara said, “Is this place really safe?”
“Safer than Mallville was,” I said, “Doctor Byron, you're going to be meeting her, she's odd, but she's really nice, and she really seems to care about everyone in town. I'm sure she will welcome you guys.”
When we arrived, Justin escorted us up to Doctor Byron's office. Polly's desk was vacant due to the hour, but Doctor Byron's door was sitting open, light streaming out of her office.
“Please, come on it,” Doctor Byron called, as if she psychically knew that we were there. I took me a second to realize that she must have been following our progress through the hospital on the security cameras.
Justin led us into Doctor Byron's office, and just like the first time I met her, she was sitting behind her desk in her lab coat (although she wore a dark blue blouse under it this time, making her pale skin seem even paler) as if it were perfectly normal for her to still be working this late in the evening. Then again, maybe it is; there's no reason she couldn't play Seventh City from here.
“Thank you, Justin,” Doctor Byron said once we were all inside her office, “I will escort them from here.”
“Yes, Doctor,” Justin said smartly, and turned to leave.
“So these are friends of yours?” Doctor Byron asked me.
“Yes, Doctor, they are from Covenant as well.”
“From Mallville?” She asked.
“Yes.”
“That is marvelous!” Doctor Byron exclaimed, “This is the first time we've had anyone be reunited here. Well, let's get on with what we need to, and then we can get you all to our physicals, and to your new home, provided of course that you want to stay.”
“I'll wait out here, if that's okay, Doctor” I said motioning to the outer office.
“Of course, I wouldn't expect you to leave,” Doctor Byron said in her normal dreamy voice, “but I still wish you would call me Evie outside the game as well.”
Tara gave me a questioning look, but there'll time to explain that later.
I took a seat on the couch in the outer office by the window. It seems so amazing to me to look out over a town now and see it lit up like the world used to be. It's not the same as the view from Alisdair's bell tower, but it is just as beautiful in its own way.
I took off my sword and satchel, pulled out my journal, and have been writing since then. When food was brought up for the rest of them, the nurse that brought it (I did not see her name tag) brought me some as well.
“Doctor Byron thought you might be hungry as well,” the nurse explained.
It was the same tofu salad that we had when we first arrived, and it brought back the memory my first night here, and I started crying a little again. I hope I'm not going to be all weepy like this from now on. I think I may have liked being unable to cry better.
They've been in there for well over an hour now, but I guess we were in there for a long time when we first arrived too. I hope someone told Pippa, Beth, and Gerry where I am so they don't worry; I should actually have been home a little while ago.
I think I'll play some solitaire while I wait. To think, people used to mock me for keeping playing cards in my bag. You should always be prepared because you never know when nothing is going to be happening.
So thirty minutes of playing solitaire later, Doctor Byron leads Tara and the others out of her office. I quickly put on my sword and satchel and followed them out into the hallways and down to the same part of the hospital that she took my group to when we first arrived.
Maybe he was just tired, or maybe it's just because he doesn't know me, but I noticed Ollie kept looking at me oddly as we walked. Tara walked next to me, but she did not try to hold my hand or anything.
“I've still got your DSi,” Bishop told me, “It's in the car, and it still works.”
“How have you been using it?”
“I charged it up when we were driving in cars. I took one of the car charger kits before we left the store. Is that okay?”
I almost facepalmed. Why hadn't I thought of that?
“Yeah, that's fine. It's not like I'm ever going back to the store again,” I said, “You keep it, just take care of it, okay? “
The curly haired Doctor Ellis was waiting for us at the same nurse's station as before, but instead of waiting with Doctor Selznick, she was waiting with Doctor David Phillips, a broad shouldered doctor with short black hair. The two of them were playing cards.
“Well it's about time,” Doctor Ellis said in what had to at least be partly mock annoyance.
“You pulled us out of poker night for this,” Doctor Phillips added, also seeming to be at least partially joking.
“I will leave you to your examinations, and arrange for your new living accommodations,” said Doctor Byron, “I assure you that you are in capable hands.”
“Come on,” said Doctor Phillips, abandoning his cards on the counter top, “Let's see how healthy you all are.”
Doctors Phillips and Ellis led the others down the hall to the examination rooms, and Doctor Byron pulled me aside, “We need to talk.”
I got worried, as it was the first time I'd ever seen her looking really focused and serious, “Yes, ma'am,”
“You're not in any sort of trouble, so calm down,” she said, reading the look on my face, “You and Tara had a relationship before, is that correct?”
“Yes, Doctor.”
“Does she know about you and,” she had to pause to think for a second, “Sharon, correct?”
“Yes, Doctor, her name was Sharon,” I answered, “and sort of. I told her that Sharon and I did have a relationship after we left Mallville, but I didn't tell her we were married.”
“Do you think the two of you will try and resume your relationship now?”
“I don't know... probably.”
Doctor Byron nodded, “Psychology is not my specialty, but I would suggest you get everything out in the open as soon as possible; both of you. I really don't have a lot of experience with relationships, but I do know that secrets will come back to haunt you later.”
“Yes, Doctor.”
“Don't look so worried, I'm sure you'll do the right thing. Your friends hold you in too high of esteem for you to not be that kind of person.”
“My friends?”
“Beth, Gerry, Pippa, even young Bishop there seems to have a high opinion of you. I think the only person you know who doesn't respect you is you, but it seems like you are doing better. I still think some counseling would do you good though,” Doctor Byron looked at me curiously, “However, I am still not going to force you. Now if you will excuse me, I do have a little more work to do before turning in today. I do like it when new people come to town.”
With that, Doctor Byron patted me on the shoulder, turned, and pressed the button for the elevator. When the doors opened, she turned, stepped in, pressed a button and a gave me a finger twiddling wave as the doors closed.
Left alone again, I went to the waiting area that I met Gerry, Beth, and Pippa in after our own doctor's exams. Did it take this long for our check-ups? Does this mean that there is something wrong with them? They did look thinner than we did when we got to town.
I'm at home now. Shortly after I wrote the last paragraph I heard footsteps coming down the hall towards me. It was Gerry, Beth, and Pippa.
“Is it true?” Gerry asked, “Is Tara really here?”
“Yes, she's been alive all this time,” I answered.
“Wow, that is great!” Gerry said, smiling wide.
“Are you okay?” Beth asked.
“Yeah, why?”
Beth looked at me like I said something stupid, “Why do you think? Your old girlfriend, one of the people you have been pining over since we got here, suddenly turns up and you wonder why I'm asking if you're okay?”
“I'm fine.”
“Did you tell her? About you and Sharon I mean?” Gerry asked.
“I told her that we were together until....”
“Bet you didn't tell her you got married,” Pippa said, almost a little cruelly.
“No, but I will when it seems right.”
“I'll tell her!” Pippa volunteered.
“You will not,” Beth snapped, “The three of us are going to keep our mouths shut, do you understand?”
“Yes, Beth, but-”
“No buts!” then to me, “You need to tell her, especially if you are going to try and pick up from where you left off,” she seemed annoyed. In fact, Gerry is the only one who seemed genuinely happy for me, but then he's also the only one who really was around me when Tara and I were together.
Before I could ask Beth why she seemed upset, a door opened down the hall, and Tara came out of one of the examination rooms, “Gerry? Beth?” she asked, seeing them, “You're really here!”
Tara tried to run down the hall towards us, but it was more of a fast limp. When she got to where we were all standing she gave both Beth and Gerry hugs, and stroked each of their faces.
“Oh my God,” Tara enthused, “It's so good to see you guys.”
“It's good to see you too, Tara,” Beth said, she looked and sounded genuine; all signs of her previous annoyance were gone.
“I'm sorry to hear about Maria,” Tara said to Gerry.
“She went out on her own terms. I can only pray that we all get to do that,” Gerry said. It was the first time I'd heard him say something like that. In fact it's probably the first time I've heard him mention Maria in over a month.
“And who is this?” Tara asked, looking at Pippa.
“This is Pippa Webster,” I said, “She joined up with us a few months back. Pippa, this is Tara Lafferty.”
“It's nice to meet you,” Pippa said in a voice far less convincing than the one she used a couple of weeks back when she said she wanted to meet Tara, but thought she was dead, “So you two were an item? You're like old enough to- Ow! What the hell?”
Beth had kicked Pippa in the shin. “Pippa sometimes doesn't think before acting,” Beth explained.
“That's fine. I'm sure I must look awful,” Beth had failed her saving throw; Tara had instantly gone into her ice-queen mode, and was looking at Pippa funny, “There's not a lot of hotels with hot showers and all-you-can-eat buffets open out there anymore.”
“You do look like you've had a rough time out there,” Beth agreed, trying to defrost Tara, “but I'm sure a nice hot bath and a few days of regular meals and sleeping in a bed will fix you right up.”
You know what I realized at that point? Beth was like the mom to our group. If I am Pippa's brother then Beth is our mom. She has spent so much of the last seven months trying to keep us all going, mediate fights, and just generally keep us from splitting up or killing each other, and I had never once thanked her for it. I am a real asshole sometimes.
Tara softened a little, “Yes, It'll be nice. Is it true that the whole town has power and water?”
“Yes, and local internet, and TV, and alcohol.”
“Doctor Byron told us about the TV station; apparently it's the one that Toni worked at. Maybe she'll be able to get her job back.” Tara said,
We talked while we waited for the others to come out. Tara made sure that everybody was introduced to everybody else, but she never fully warmed up, and she kept looking at Pippa, who didn't say much of anything the rest of the time.
Bishop was the next one out of his examination, followed by his mom, who gave me a hug when she joined us. I had to introduce her to Gerry and Beth as well as Pippa as she didn't know either of them from Mallville. Oliver was the last one to join us.
Of course if Pippa and Tara kept trading odd glances at each other, then Oliver, who was also kept pretty quiet, was trying to drill a hole through me with his eyes. Is there something between him and Tara? Is there nothing, but he wants there to be something? I have no right to be jealous or suspicious, but that doesn't stop me from being a bit of both.
It doesn't help that Ollie is blond haired, blue eyed, handsome, and well-muscled as opposed to my rather less impressive build. I may not be fat anymore, but even as thin as he is he looks like he stepped out of a lifeguard calendar, as where I look like I stepped out of the Think Geek catalog.
Shortly after the examinations were over, a blondish Genetitech Security officer, who Beth greeted as Ben, arrived to take Tara and her group to their new home. He led them back towards the elevators.
Before leaving, Tara gave me a hug and a quick kiss on the cheek, “Can we talk tomorrow?” she asked.
“Of course,” I said, “I'm sure we have a lot to catch up on.”
Tara smiled, “We do. I missed you so much, you don't know how it feels to find out you are here and still alive. I keep expecting to wake up from this dream,” she hugged me again, “You have a good night then, I'll see you tomorrow.”
Once Tara, Toni, Bishop, and Oliver were gone, Beth let out a weary sigh, “Okay, lets go home.”
“Beth got a car!” Pippa said happily.
“A car? How did you do that?”
“Don't be so impressed. I just filled out some forms and was issued one. Trust me, it's nothing to be impressed by.”
Beth was right. The car was anything but impressive. It looked like an older white 4 door compact car, except that it only had three wheels in a tricycle configuration. The markings on it identified it as a Zapcar Xebra, and that it was property of Genetitech Laboratories. I had seen a couple of them around town, but never paid them too much attention.
“Umm, wow,” I said, trying to not sound underwhelmed.
“Yup,” Beth agreed, “She's fully electric, has a top speed of about 38 miles an hour, and barely enough battery to get us home with. See why I said not to be too impressed?”
“I didn't know these things even existed outside of shows on The Discovery Channel before we got here.”
“I don't think most people knew, but hey, if it gets us around Mayberry, right?” Gerry said.
I shared the backseat with Pippa, cramming my satchel in my lap, and my sword on the floor between my legs. Not all that comfortable, but it beats walking home; it was kind of cold tonight.
“You dated her before Sharon?” Pippa asked as we drove.
“Yes,” I said, “Sharon was seeing a man named Alex, who was Tara's boss. Tara and I started hanging out, and things went from there. You know all of this.”
“But she's old!” Pippa exclaimed.
“She's a few years older than me, yeah, but she's not old.” I said.
“She has gray hair!”
“She didn't then,” I explained.
“She's too old for you, you should find someone your age.”
“She's the same age as me, Pippa,” Beth commented from the front seat.
“No way! She looks like she's in her forties! You still look young.”
“What about me, do I look young?” Gerry asked, trying to keep things light.
“Be nice to her, Pippa,” I said.
“I liked Sharon better.”
That hurt me. I turned to look out the window as my newfound tears threatened to break free again. I wanted to say a lot of things; things like, “You don't even know her.” and “Well Sharon's gone!” and “Shut the fuck up!”, but instead I didn't say anything.
“Pippa, leave it alone, please,” Beth said, “Don't make me stop this car.”
“I'm just saying-”
“Pippa!” Beth snapped.
The rest of the trip was made in silence.
When we got home, Beth pulled the Xebra into the garage, and plugged it in while the rest of us went into the house. Pippa went to her room without a word, but Gerry stopped to talk to me.
“What are you gonna do?” he asked.
“I don't know; just wait and see what happens, I guess.”
“If you want to get back together with her, don't wait. You already know what happens when you wait.”
“Yeah, Gerry, I do.”
Gerry patted me on the shoulder, and then went to his room. I waited for Beth to come in.
“Beth?” I said as she tried to pass me on the way to her bedroom.
“What?” she said, sounding tired and annoyed.
“I just wanted to thank you.”
Beth's expression changed to one of puzzlement, “For what?”
“For being there for me.”
“For coming to pick you up? It's not a big deal, I wanted to see her too.”
“No, in general. I realized tonight how much work you put in to keeping us all together, and thought I should thank you. You seemed like you needed some attention.”
Beth smiled, “You guys are my family. You're all I have, and I know you understand that. I'm sorry if I seemed a little short earlier, Tara just worries me.”
“Why? You don't like her?”
“I like the her I know, but none of us are the same person we were last year. What if she's changed? What if she hurts you? What if you hurt her? You got married while you thought she was dead, so what was she doing during that time? How is she going to react when you tell her the details about you and Sharon?”
“I'm just happy knowing she's alive; I'll be fine whatever happens.”
“Will you?” Beth took a breath, steeling herself for what she would say next, “This is going to sound bad, so please forgive me. The person I lost in all of this, back at the start, it is easier for me to know that they are dead than it would be if... this person was up walking around, living in this town, and weren't with me anymore. Now you're a strong person-”
“No, I'm not,”
“Stop that! You are strong, but I don't know if you're that strong. Whatever happens, just please don't go back to the way you were in June.”
“I will be fine, I promise you.”
Beth nodded, “Just be careful with your heart and hers. I'm going to get some sleep. You should too.”
“I will soon,” I said.
“I know, after you write it all down in your diary,” Beth gave me a quick hug, ”I'll see you in the morning.”
So is Beth right? Have Tara and I changed too much to be compatible anymore? Is she in a relationship with Oliver? Is that why she was shooting daggers with his eyes? Am I just setting myself up for more pain?
I'm on the late shift again tomorrow, so I guess I'll have all day to talk things over with Tara. Whatever becomes of it, I will not go back to being mopey and depressed. Things are as good as they are ever likely to get for me again right now, and I am not going to squander that.
Even here in Lovelock I could still die tomorrow, or next week, or next month. I may not see another Halloween or Christmas, and I am not going to spend anymore time feeling sorry for myself; I am not going to waste even one more day being miserable.
Whatever happens tomorrow with Tara, I will survive.
Hey, hey.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Fiftieth entry: Field Trip
July 5th
The last week or so have been good. I am feeling a lot better since I put those things away, and good things seem to be happening as a result. I know the glasses, and the present, and stuff are all still there, but not seeing them everyday isn't as hard as actually being able to see them was. I've also been spending more time with Pippa while Gerry is out on runs and Beth is down in the labs doing her training. It's been nice, and I've not felt creepy, which is also nice.
Gerry came back from a run on Thursday with a present for me. He had been home for a couple off hours when he came into the living room where I was reading (“1984”, if you're curious), and dropped a large purple gift bag on the IKEA-esque coffee table.
I lowered my book, and asked, “What's that?”
“It's your birthday present. Happy birthday!” Gerry said, and I saw Pippa come into the room from the dining room where she had been on her laptop.
“It's not my birthday,” I said.
“Well, I figure I have known you for more than a year, and I've not seen you celebrate your birthday, so we must have missed it at some point. That's from Beth too, by the way, but I didn't want to wait for her to come home from training.”
“Is she okay with that?”
“If she's not, tough,” Gerry grinned.
“You didn't have to get me any-”
“Open it!” Pippa cut me off with a gleeful cry.
I dropped my book onto the coffee table, and took the bag; it was heavier than I expected. In the bag was a relatively plain looking cardboard box with the FutureTech Computers logo on the side. I pulled the rectangular box out, and set it on the coffee table.
“Is this?” I asked.
“Yup,” Gerry beamed, “Now you and Pippa can play together.”
I let any obvious replies to that go since they would just make me look bad.
I opened the box and found wrapped in the plastic and styrofoam inside was a shiny black laptop emblazoned with the FutureTech FT logo.
“How did you get this?” I asked as I unpacked the folder of instructions and the power cable.
“We brought a bunch back with us on the last run, and as I am sure you remember, being on the Acquisition Team has its advantages,” Gerry said, “You might want to look in the bag again.”
I looked in the gift bag, and at the bottom of it was a shrink wrapped copy of Seventh City Online. It was the deluxe version that came with a headset for voice communication in game and a superhero action figure.
“I figure you'll need that too.”
“Install it! Install it!” cried Pippa.
“You really shouldn't have,“ I said, feeling embarrassed.
“It wasn't all my idea,” explained Gerry, ”and I expect you to do a better job of sharing than Pippa does.”
“Hey!” Pippa protested.
It's a nice laptop, and it might even fit in my satchel if I cleared some of the crap out of there. It's even got a little television plug-in for it that can pick up Lovelock's one TV station, not that I watch the news much, but it's nice to have the option.
I installed the laptop's battery, and plugged it in. The laptop booted up perfectly and I went through all of the first time use stuff. Register? No. Sign up for free online backup service X? No. Subscribe to virus protection software? No. Sign up for internet service provider X? No.
Finally I was able to get the computer onto Lovelock's wifi, and install the game. Once it was running Pippa hovered around me while I created my character.
“Your nose isn't that big, and you're not fat like that!” Pippa protested.
“Who says it's me?” I said.
“It looks like it's supposed to be you. Look!” Pippa pointed at the screen, “You even gave him a scar over his eye like yours. Come on, do it right! No fatties!”
After decking him out in an all black suit, a black fedora, and a pair of steampunk-looking goggles Captain_Noir was ready to hit the streets of Seventh City. Rushing through the tutorial, I selected his powers (telekinesis, strength, and enhanced healing), and left the tutorial area.
On the street outside the starting area I found a couple of people waiting for me, Super-Pippa, a tall female in a bright red bodysuit, and Evie_of_Destruction, a pale woman in a flowing white dress and cape who hovered about a foot off the ground and glowed, casting light onto the street and buildings around us.
“Hello, Captain Noir,” Evie_of_Destruction said, and I recognized the voice immediately; it was Doctor Byron.
“Doctor Byron?” I asked into my headset.
“Now now,” Evie_of_Destruction cautioned me, “Let's try to stay in character.”
I checked out Doctor Byron's character and found that she was maxed out at level ninety-nine. Pippa on the other hand was at level twenty, and of course I was a mere level two (you gain a level in the tutorial for choosing your starting abilities).
“I know that you have been having some trouble connecting with people since you arrived here,” Evie_of_Destruction, “So I was hoping that you might be able to form some connections here. I hope you do not take offense.”
A little bit, yeah, but that's not what I said, “No doct-... Miss Destruction”
Evie_of_Destruction sighed, “Will you please, in here at least, call me Evie?”
“Get him!” a voice called from behind Captain_Noir, and there was a gunshot. A red “-10” appeared over his head. I spun my character to see three men in raccoon masks and black and white striped shirts firing pistols at me.
A red beam shot past me as Evie_of_Destruction fired her eye beams, and sent all three of the low level NPCs flying against the wall of a building with a red “-1542” appearing above each of their heads. They hit the ground and faded away.
“Well, I have a raid to go to. I hope the two of you have fun, just make sure this does not interfere with your other responsibilities. Now if you'll excuse me,” and with that Evie_of_Destruction shot up into the sky and out of sight.
Pippa and I played well into the night, and I was at level thirteen before we stopped. I've never been much of an MMO player because I didn't like the subscription model. I was afraid that if I was paying a monthly fee I would feel obligated to play it at the expense of playing something else. I've seen “Second Skin”, I know how addictive these games can be, but this was a lot of fun.
My week of goodness continued the next day when, instead of standing around at one of the roads into town I got to go a field trip. I was invited to help stand guard while the scientists tested out some of their anti-zed technology. Most of the guard was composed of Genetitech Security (including Beth), but me, Zack, and a handful of other civilian guards were along just in case.
The reason for the heavy security presence is because they do not test these things in town We actually drove to a town to the east called Harlan because we needed a supply of zeds to test on. Honestly, I doubt the claim that there are not zombies kept down in the labs for testing on, but I don't suppose bringing them out into town would not be a very good idea.
Our caravan of trucks, cars, and vans drove quickly along the road that had been scouted out in the morning to make sure that it was still clear and intact, and arrived at Harlan early in the afternoon.
The testing field was the baseball diamond at Harlan East Middle School. This was not the first time that they had used this location, as there was already a cage built out of chain link fencing out in right field with three active zeds locked in it, and a large fence had been erected around the entire field to make sure no one could accidentally walk into the testing area. I was told that they've been using this place for awhile, and the lack of active zeds in the town would seem to be evidence of that.
I only got to witness three of the tests, but I did get to meet Zack's wife, Margaret, and the two guys she works with. Grant Vang, a youngish looking man with short black hair, and James Carraway, a balding man with a ridiculous handlebar mustache who wears a newsboy cap. Vang and Carraway are both absolutely insane, but the machine of theirs betrays genius beneath that insanity.
Doctor Byron was with us, wearing a loose white blouse and slacks and carrying a wide white umbrella to keep the summer sun off of her sensitive skin. The whole exercise seemed to be a mix of the progress on these items being demonstrated for Doctor Byron, and a morale boost for the scientists who have spent I don't know how long working on them. It was all quite impressive really.
The first demonstration I saw was built by Doctors Hutchins, Vang, and Carraway; it was something they called Da Vinci's Scythe Wagon. It looked more like something from the old Battlebots show than any design of Da Vinci's I've ever seen though. It was a box about four and a half feet tall with tank treads at the bottom. The wagon was topped with, just as Beth had described it, what looked like a two layered helicopter prop. One of the props was set at around five and a half feet, the other at about five feet, and each of the blades was actually a curved scythe made of gleaming metal.
The scythe wagon was driven out onto the baseball diamond by a large remote control that Doctor Vang was holding. When he got it to the pitchers mound, Doctors Carraway and Hutchins went out and tinkered with it; I think they were undoing some sort of safety device on the propellers. When they were done, they both quickly moved away from the machine.
“Safety is off!” Doctor Carraway hollered.
“Wagon is live! I repeat, wagon is live!” Doctor Vang yelled in response.
Hutchins and Carraway got to the gate in the fence, and closed it behind them as the scythe wagon's blades started to spin. It was like looking at a giant rolling food processor.
“Release the subject!” Doctor Hutchins called.
The door to the cage with the three zeds in it out on the field slid open, and the zeds shambled towards freedom, but the gate slid shut again before more than one of them could get out. The ghoul started shambling towards where the majority of us were standing outside the fenced off area.
The scythe wagon turned and started rolling in the direction of the zed, its whirling blades throwing off glints of sunlight. The wagon was slow, a normal person could probably outrun it, but it was faster than most of the zeds I've ever seen. Doctor Vang drove the wagon around in front of the zed, and then charged it head on. Whatever motor the doctors used in that thing must be incredibly strong because it tore through the zed like it had been made out of paper. The scythe wagon tore off the zeds head and left arm and shoulder before the creature even had enough time to fall to the ground.
“I am impressed,” said Doctor Byron, “And what kind of battery life can we expect off of these?”
“At full power, around ninety minutes,” answered Doctor Vang, “However without the weapon employed the scythe wagon can travel for approximately four hours.”
“And does it need to be controlled locally like this?”
“No, Doctor,” explained Doctor Hutchins,” The wagon is fit with video cameras, and can be controlled from the vault in what we expect to be about a six mile radius.”
“Very nice,” Doctor Byron.
At that moment something hit the fence next to me, One of the blades from the scythe wagon had broken loose and launched itself in my direction. The fence stopped it in a small shower of sparks, dropping it to the ground harmlessly. That did not stop me from flinching far too late to have saved me, tripping over my own feet, and falling onto the brown grass. The impact of my sword against my back momentarily knocked the wind out of me.
Out on the field the scythe wagon now wobbled dangerously, thrown off balance by a missing blade, “Shutting down!” Doctor Vang called out, and the blades started to slow.
“Are you okay?” Doctor Byron called to me as I got back to my feet.
“Yes, Doctor, just surprised,” I said as I brushed dust and bits of dead grass off of my jeans.
“I think there is still some work to be done,” Doctor Byron judged, “but I would very much like to see your progress. You are cleared for one more month of work, but at that time I want to see your balance situation resolved. “
Doctors Vang, Hutchins, and Carraway came over to me, “Hey, I am totally sorry about that, man,” said Doctor Vang.
“That's what the fence is for, right?” I said, trying to seem less freaked out by it than I really was.
“It is,” said Doctor Carraway, “but sometimes I think that we maybe need something more... substantial.
“I think,” announced Doctor Byron, “that we are going to need more test subjects. Justin, please take Beth and a couple of the citizen guard with you to gather some.”
“Yes, Doctor,” a tanned man with a buzzcut in a black Genetitech Security uniform snapped, “Officer O'Hara, pick two people and meet me by the cars.”
I had started doing a bit of daydreaming when I felt a hand on my shoulder, “Come on, lets go,” Beth said, and kept walking.
“What are we doing exactly?” I asked.
“Gathering test subjects, you know, zeds, zombies, animated corpses, soulless, ghouls, etcetera. You don't think I would let you hang out here and miss fun like that, do you?”
“No, why would you?”
We walked over to where the cars and trucks that had made up our caravan were waiting. Officer Justin Lassit and Beth's other civilian pick were already standing there by a large black Genetitch Laboratories delivery truck talking. I was surprised to see that the other person Beth had chose was Barbara Rosenberg; I hadn't even realized she had come out there with us.
“O'Hara and I will take the truck, you and Rosenberg will follow behind,” Justin said to me, “Stay close; I don't want to have to waste any time looking for you, okay?”
“Yes, Officer,” I said.
He seemed to think for a moment, and then said, “Call me Justin; If O'Hara thinks you're okay to call her by first namse, then you should be okay to call me by mine, okay?”
Justin and Beth got into the large truck while Barbara and I took a small blue Prius. Barbara asked me to drive, and I did not see any reason to disagree. Two uniformed officer opened the gate to let us out of the fenced in area and into the seemingly abandoned town.
One thing I noticed as we slowly drove through town was that all of the stores looked empty, as in totally cleaned out. Some stores looked like they had been broken into while others looked untouched, but every one of them looked like it had been cleaned out down to the walls. Clearly Lovelock's acquisition teams were a lot more thorough than we were in Mallville.
“So you're Gerry's friend, right?” Barbara asked,” I mean you live with him and Beth and that girl, right?”
“Yeah,” I answered, “We traveled together for a long time.”
“Gerry told me,” Barbara, “You guys were lucky to have each other. I would have killed for someone to talk to on the road.” she clutched her Annihilator tool in her lap while she spoke.
“I would'nt be here now if it wasn't for them,” I said.
“I'm lucky to be. Everyone I ran into out there was a complete asshole. There was Barry, he was a coach at the school I taught at; you know I was a teacher, right?”
“Yes.”
“Well, he tried to force himself on me at the end of the first month, and that... that didn't end well.”
“Wow, I'm sorry,” I said, not sure how to reply to that.
“Then there were these pricks that thought they were vampires. I got away from them by escaping in the daylight.”
“They thought they would burn up or something?” I asked.
“No, they were afraid of seeing each other as they really were. They said they were ugly in daylight. I wanted to point out to them that they weren't exactly fashion models in the dark either,” Barbara took a deep breath, “I wish I could have been with your group, it sounds like you guys had a better time of things than I did.”
“It wasn't all great,” I said, “We lost some people... some really important people out there.”
“Oh, yeah, huh? Gerry told me about your wife. I'm sorry about that,” Barbara said a little awkwardly.
“It's no one's fault,” I told Barbara, like I tell myself every day now, “I'm finally starting to move on now.”
“But you still miss her, huh?”
“I miss everyone I've lost, but she is certainly at the top of the list,” then, trying to change the subject a little, “but I'm sure you miss people too.”
“Yeah, I do,” Barbara said, and then stopped talking.
It was about fifteen minutes of seemingly random driving before The black truck slowed to a stop in front of us. I saw Justin and Beth hop down, Beth was pointing her vicious looking assault rifle (Beth tells me it's an FN F2000, which is good because it keeps me from having to just refer to it as a futuristic-looking gun) at something in front of the truck that I could not see. Justin motioned for me and Barbara to get out of the car and come over to him, and then slid up the back door of the truck up.
“Help me with the ramp,” Justin said as I jogged over to him, and together we extended a ramp from the back of the truck to the ground. As I handled the ramp I could feel cold air flowing out of the back of the truck, and realized that the inside of the back was refrigerated' this truck probably hauled produce or meat or something in the old world.
The inside of the back of the truck gave me pause. About two feet in from the edge of the truck was a cage wall with a sliding gate on it. On the walls of each side of the truck were four seven foot long metals poles, two to each side, with metal cable dangling from each. Even though this stuff didn't look anywhere near as amateur, it still made me think of the Hell's Postmen and their cage truck. The fact it was refrigerated was to make the zeds more sedate once they were inside the cage, which was something I'm sure the Postmen would have wished they had thought of.
Justin climbed into the back of the truck, and pulled one of the metal poles out of the bracket that was holding it to the wall, and tossed it down to me. I caught it, but not without one end clanging against the surface of the street. At one end of the pole the cable was bolted down , and looped so that the rest of the cable was threaded through the pole. About two feet from the other end of the pole the wire came out through a hole, allowing the user to tighten noose at the other end. There was also a metal clip to lock the cable in place once your target had been caught in the noose.
“Okay, so I know this is the first time doing this for either of you,” Justin started, “but I also know that you must know how to handle yourselves around the ghouls or you wouldn't be here now,” Justin pulled another of the poles free, and tossed it down to Barbara who caught it much more smoothly than I did.
“What we're going to do is simple. We need to catch some ghouls for the brains to test their projects out on. Now we don't want to waste the meds sedating them,” Justin pulled a third pole loose to demonstrate with, “so one of you just needs to catch the ghoul's head in the loop, pull it tight, and then lock it in place with the little clip down there by your hand,” he pointed at me.
“Once you've done that, then the other needs to catch the ghoul in their own loop, and do the same. Then you both just guide them up the ramp, and into the cage, there's an open space on the gate for the poles to go through when we close the door. Once we have the ghoul secured in the cage, unlock your loop, and slide it back over their head, and the cold will take care of the rest.”
“What do we do if there's more than one of them?” Barbara asked.
“Beth and I will be covering you. If you're in danger we'll take care of it,” Justin said, patting the rifle hanging from its shoulder strap and resting on his hip.
“If we want to take this one alive, you'd better get to it, “ Beth called from around the front of the truck, “I'm going to take it down if it gets much closer.”
Moving to the front of the truck we found a male zed about twenty feet away; it was shambling a direct path towards Beth, who kept the barrel of her gun trained on it. The zed was pretty short, maybe five and a half feet and was wearing a filthy white button up shirt. It's left arm was missing, the sleeve of his shirt ending in maroon tatters. A bear? Are there bears up here? Do bears eat zombies? Can a bear become a zombie (to that, the answer is apparently no; Zack Hutchins told me that the virus/bacteria/whatever doesn't seem to spread between species while I was drinking and telling my tale in Bacchus later... thank God for that).
Catching the zed was fairly easy; Barbara went around one side of it, and I went around the other. We were able to capture its head easily enough, and hold it stable between us to maneuver it around the back of the truck and up the ramp.
The gate of the cage was automatic, and Justin opened it by pushing a button that I had not noticed on the side of the truck. I noticed that he had to put a key into it first, which is probably meant to keep anyone from accidentally releasing the zeds. Getting the nooses off of the zed's neck once it was safely locked up took a bit of work though; we didn't have a lot of room in the gate's gap to move the pole around, but in time we figured it out.
It took about an hour to gather up eight zeds, and most of that was just finding them. Previous rounds of experimentation have pretty much cleaned out Harlan of its undead infestation. It's too bad we can't just chip away at all of them like this.
We got back to the middle school in time to see two white coated scientists spraying down a flaming zed through the fence with fire extinguishers. Hell, I could have told them that setting the things on fire was a bad idea.
Since we had captured the zeds, we were spared the pleasure of having to re-rope the now sluggish zeds and remove them from the back of the refrigerated truck and into the holding pen. The warm summer sun seemed to revive them pretty quickly, but not before they were safely locked up again in the holding pen..
The last two tests of the day, there had only been five planned and we missed the second and third, were both quite interesting. The first was some sort of microwave gun (I did not catch the proper name). It looked like a big square satellite dish mounted on the roof of a van.
When the door to the holding pen slid open, two zeds managed to get out before the door slid shut again; a male and a female. They startled their shuffling job towards the truck, and the satellite dish tracked the the whole way.
Once the zeds no longer had the holding pen behind them the dish activated (I guess, since I didn't hear any noise). In seconds both zeds started smoking; their skin appeared to dry out and start to crack like the meat in a TV dinner put in the microwave for too long. A couple of seconds after that they stumbled and fell to the ground, smoke and steam drifting up off of their well done corpses.
“It can cook a turkey in a minute too,” said the scientist working the gun by remote, Doctor King, earning him a good round of laughter.
The final one was probably my favorite, they called it the Vortex Ring Gun, and it was also truck mounted, though to a pickup truck this time. The device looked kind of like a super-sized grenade launcher, although unlike the microwave gun this one was controlled directly by a Genetitech Security officer.
When a zed was released into the testing area it charged the fresh meat atop the pickup, but when it was maybe twenty meters away it was suddenly thrown off of its feet by an unseen force. The zed tried to get back up off of the ground, but was flattened, as if pounded by an invisible giant's fist. The zombie did not try to get up again.
I did not get to hear the explanation behind how this gun worked, so I don't know if it was sound or air pressure, or what, but it impressed me. I can only imagine what we could have done with something like that back at Mallville. Of course I can also imagine what Kaur would have done with it too.
Over all Doctor Byron said that she was very pleased with the progress everyone was making, and that she looked forward to seeing what else people came up with by next month's test. I hope that I'll get to go on that one too.
On the ride home I ended up in a car with Barbara, and two guys named Ciaran Monroe and Christian Whitehall. Ciaran, our driver, kept hitting on Barbara the whole drive home.
“Would it be okay if I were allowed to buy the fair zombie wrangler a drink at Bacchus?” Ciaran asked.
“Well, okay,” I said, “but you're not getting past second base on the first date.”
Christian and Barbara laughed at that, and I'm pretty sure Ciaran turned red, but I could not see him clearly from the backseat.
“I meant Barbara,” Ciaran said, a little bitterly.
“One,” retorted Barbara, “the drinks at Bacchus are free, and two, I'm sorry if I offended you.”
“Whatcha mean?” Ciaran asked.
“Well in some countries giving somebody a glass of that wood stripper would be considered a hostile act.” Barbara explained. Ciaran laughed perhaps a bit too hard at that.
Barbara puts on a good front, but I think she's uncomfortable being flirted with. Maybe it's just that Ciaran was trying too hard. The problem can't be that she's not used to being hit on because she is quite attractive.
Don't get me wrong; even though I do find Barbara attractive I have no interest in her. I need to be with myself and my adopted family for awhile now, and I don't know if I have room in that part of my heart for anyone after Tara and Sharon.
We did end up at Bacchus that night, and Barbara and I sat at the bar and watched the others act far more foolish than two glasses of even stuff as strong as Milly's specialty could possibly get you. Zackariah did a pretty mean rendition of “She Blinded Me With Science”
SCIENCE!
Of course the crowning jewel of the last week was yesterday, July Fourth. Last year I spent the holiday pretty much considering suicide, but this year was so much better.
For Fourth of July Doctor Byron had a picnic put on in the park at the center of town. She wanted to do a barbecue, but that requires meat, and the best we could come up with on that front were apparently canned whole chickens and Spam. Grilled Spam is actually not bad, but the canned chicken was not so good. It's not that the chicken actually tasted bad, but more that it didn't taste like much of anything. Who thought that canning whole chickens was even a good idea?
Aside from the grilling there were vegetable and fruit based dishes that were good. Fruit salads, pies, cakes, all good stuff. I think the whole town turned out for it even though the sky was cloudy and kept threatening to rain..
You can really tell how much Doctor Byron cares about this town; she really tried to create a sense of the world before. If it weren't for the fact that most people carry weapons of some sort with them all the time it might be a little more convincing, but I'm not complaining.
Pippa and I took part in the three legged race, but lost out to Zack and Margaret Hutchins. Actually we lost to a lot of people, including Barbara and Beth. It probably would have been easier if I had just carried Pippa.
Beth and Pippa forced me to join in on a baseball game. It was civilians versus Genetitech staff. You would think that beating the scientists would be easy, but they also had security officers on their team (although Beth was allowed to play on the civvie team), so it evened things out a lot. In the end we won thanks to Beth hitting a grand slam home run in the eighth inning.
It probably would have helped if I were any good at sports, but I'm not. I did manage to make it to base twice though, and even crossed home plate once thanks to Gerry hitting a long one into left field. He says it's from his days in the major leagues, and you don't forget batting skills like that once you learn them.
There was live music on the park's bandstand. The first band was a group of scientists from the labs who called themselves The Ionics. The other was really just three teenagers called Maneki Neko and th Ch'an Chu. It was fun; Beth made me dance with her some more.
Later in the afternoon the wind picked up, it got colder, and rain seemed a near certainty, but very few people left. I don't think they wanted the illusion of normalcy to end. Going back to our homes and watching the one TV station would just be a reminder of that.
Luckily it never did rain, and the clouds actually worked in our favor. There were no fireworks, but there was still a light show. Someone from the labs built some laser projectors (or maybe they just already had them for some reason), and the clouds became the canvas for a fantastic laser light show. Nothing exploded, but there were still plenty of “oohs'” and “aahs”in the park that night.
Like I said, it's been a really good week. I only wish that Tara, Alex, Sharon, and Maria could be here to enjoy it with us. I'm not going to let that get me down though; I wouldn't want them to be all mopey like I've been if things had gone differently.
I'd better stop now; I was supposed to meet Pippa in Seventh City 20 minutes ago. Captain_Noir is level 22 now.
I never thought I would be able to say this again, but I actually feel pretty happy; like I could live happily ever after if things could just stay the way they are right now.
The last week or so have been good. I am feeling a lot better since I put those things away, and good things seem to be happening as a result. I know the glasses, and the present, and stuff are all still there, but not seeing them everyday isn't as hard as actually being able to see them was. I've also been spending more time with Pippa while Gerry is out on runs and Beth is down in the labs doing her training. It's been nice, and I've not felt creepy, which is also nice.
Gerry came back from a run on Thursday with a present for me. He had been home for a couple off hours when he came into the living room where I was reading (“1984”, if you're curious), and dropped a large purple gift bag on the IKEA-esque coffee table.
I lowered my book, and asked, “What's that?”
“It's your birthday present. Happy birthday!” Gerry said, and I saw Pippa come into the room from the dining room where she had been on her laptop.
“It's not my birthday,” I said.
“Well, I figure I have known you for more than a year, and I've not seen you celebrate your birthday, so we must have missed it at some point. That's from Beth too, by the way, but I didn't want to wait for her to come home from training.”
“Is she okay with that?”
“If she's not, tough,” Gerry grinned.
“You didn't have to get me any-”
“Open it!” Pippa cut me off with a gleeful cry.
I dropped my book onto the coffee table, and took the bag; it was heavier than I expected. In the bag was a relatively plain looking cardboard box with the FutureTech Computers logo on the side. I pulled the rectangular box out, and set it on the coffee table.
“Is this?” I asked.
“Yup,” Gerry beamed, “Now you and Pippa can play together.”
I let any obvious replies to that go since they would just make me look bad.
I opened the box and found wrapped in the plastic and styrofoam inside was a shiny black laptop emblazoned with the FutureTech FT logo.
“How did you get this?” I asked as I unpacked the folder of instructions and the power cable.
“We brought a bunch back with us on the last run, and as I am sure you remember, being on the Acquisition Team has its advantages,” Gerry said, “You might want to look in the bag again.”
I looked in the gift bag, and at the bottom of it was a shrink wrapped copy of Seventh City Online. It was the deluxe version that came with a headset for voice communication in game and a superhero action figure.
“I figure you'll need that too.”
“Install it! Install it!” cried Pippa.
“You really shouldn't have,“ I said, feeling embarrassed.
“It wasn't all my idea,” explained Gerry, ”and I expect you to do a better job of sharing than Pippa does.”
“Hey!” Pippa protested.
It's a nice laptop, and it might even fit in my satchel if I cleared some of the crap out of there. It's even got a little television plug-in for it that can pick up Lovelock's one TV station, not that I watch the news much, but it's nice to have the option.
I installed the laptop's battery, and plugged it in. The laptop booted up perfectly and I went through all of the first time use stuff. Register? No. Sign up for free online backup service X? No. Subscribe to virus protection software? No. Sign up for internet service provider X? No.
Finally I was able to get the computer onto Lovelock's wifi, and install the game. Once it was running Pippa hovered around me while I created my character.
“Your nose isn't that big, and you're not fat like that!” Pippa protested.
“Who says it's me?” I said.
“It looks like it's supposed to be you. Look!” Pippa pointed at the screen, “You even gave him a scar over his eye like yours. Come on, do it right! No fatties!”
After decking him out in an all black suit, a black fedora, and a pair of steampunk-looking goggles Captain_Noir was ready to hit the streets of Seventh City. Rushing through the tutorial, I selected his powers (telekinesis, strength, and enhanced healing), and left the tutorial area.
On the street outside the starting area I found a couple of people waiting for me, Super-Pippa, a tall female in a bright red bodysuit, and Evie_of_Destruction, a pale woman in a flowing white dress and cape who hovered about a foot off the ground and glowed, casting light onto the street and buildings around us.
“Hello, Captain Noir,” Evie_of_Destruction said, and I recognized the voice immediately; it was Doctor Byron.
“Doctor Byron?” I asked into my headset.
“Now now,” Evie_of_Destruction cautioned me, “Let's try to stay in character.”
I checked out Doctor Byron's character and found that she was maxed out at level ninety-nine. Pippa on the other hand was at level twenty, and of course I was a mere level two (you gain a level in the tutorial for choosing your starting abilities).
“I know that you have been having some trouble connecting with people since you arrived here,” Evie_of_Destruction, “So I was hoping that you might be able to form some connections here. I hope you do not take offense.”
A little bit, yeah, but that's not what I said, “No doct-... Miss Destruction”
Evie_of_Destruction sighed, “Will you please, in here at least, call me Evie?”
“Get him!” a voice called from behind Captain_Noir, and there was a gunshot. A red “-10” appeared over his head. I spun my character to see three men in raccoon masks and black and white striped shirts firing pistols at me.
A red beam shot past me as Evie_of_Destruction fired her eye beams, and sent all three of the low level NPCs flying against the wall of a building with a red “-1542” appearing above each of their heads. They hit the ground and faded away.
“Well, I have a raid to go to. I hope the two of you have fun, just make sure this does not interfere with your other responsibilities. Now if you'll excuse me,” and with that Evie_of_Destruction shot up into the sky and out of sight.
Pippa and I played well into the night, and I was at level thirteen before we stopped. I've never been much of an MMO player because I didn't like the subscription model. I was afraid that if I was paying a monthly fee I would feel obligated to play it at the expense of playing something else. I've seen “Second Skin”, I know how addictive these games can be, but this was a lot of fun.
My week of goodness continued the next day when, instead of standing around at one of the roads into town I got to go a field trip. I was invited to help stand guard while the scientists tested out some of their anti-zed technology. Most of the guard was composed of Genetitech Security (including Beth), but me, Zack, and a handful of other civilian guards were along just in case.
The reason for the heavy security presence is because they do not test these things in town We actually drove to a town to the east called Harlan because we needed a supply of zeds to test on. Honestly, I doubt the claim that there are not zombies kept down in the labs for testing on, but I don't suppose bringing them out into town would not be a very good idea.
Our caravan of trucks, cars, and vans drove quickly along the road that had been scouted out in the morning to make sure that it was still clear and intact, and arrived at Harlan early in the afternoon.
The testing field was the baseball diamond at Harlan East Middle School. This was not the first time that they had used this location, as there was already a cage built out of chain link fencing out in right field with three active zeds locked in it, and a large fence had been erected around the entire field to make sure no one could accidentally walk into the testing area. I was told that they've been using this place for awhile, and the lack of active zeds in the town would seem to be evidence of that.
I only got to witness three of the tests, but I did get to meet Zack's wife, Margaret, and the two guys she works with. Grant Vang, a youngish looking man with short black hair, and James Carraway, a balding man with a ridiculous handlebar mustache who wears a newsboy cap. Vang and Carraway are both absolutely insane, but the machine of theirs betrays genius beneath that insanity.
Doctor Byron was with us, wearing a loose white blouse and slacks and carrying a wide white umbrella to keep the summer sun off of her sensitive skin. The whole exercise seemed to be a mix of the progress on these items being demonstrated for Doctor Byron, and a morale boost for the scientists who have spent I don't know how long working on them. It was all quite impressive really.
The first demonstration I saw was built by Doctors Hutchins, Vang, and Carraway; it was something they called Da Vinci's Scythe Wagon. It looked more like something from the old Battlebots show than any design of Da Vinci's I've ever seen though. It was a box about four and a half feet tall with tank treads at the bottom. The wagon was topped with, just as Beth had described it, what looked like a two layered helicopter prop. One of the props was set at around five and a half feet, the other at about five feet, and each of the blades was actually a curved scythe made of gleaming metal.
The scythe wagon was driven out onto the baseball diamond by a large remote control that Doctor Vang was holding. When he got it to the pitchers mound, Doctors Carraway and Hutchins went out and tinkered with it; I think they were undoing some sort of safety device on the propellers. When they were done, they both quickly moved away from the machine.
“Safety is off!” Doctor Carraway hollered.
“Wagon is live! I repeat, wagon is live!” Doctor Vang yelled in response.
Hutchins and Carraway got to the gate in the fence, and closed it behind them as the scythe wagon's blades started to spin. It was like looking at a giant rolling food processor.
“Release the subject!” Doctor Hutchins called.
The door to the cage with the three zeds in it out on the field slid open, and the zeds shambled towards freedom, but the gate slid shut again before more than one of them could get out. The ghoul started shambling towards where the majority of us were standing outside the fenced off area.
The scythe wagon turned and started rolling in the direction of the zed, its whirling blades throwing off glints of sunlight. The wagon was slow, a normal person could probably outrun it, but it was faster than most of the zeds I've ever seen. Doctor Vang drove the wagon around in front of the zed, and then charged it head on. Whatever motor the doctors used in that thing must be incredibly strong because it tore through the zed like it had been made out of paper. The scythe wagon tore off the zeds head and left arm and shoulder before the creature even had enough time to fall to the ground.
“I am impressed,” said Doctor Byron, “And what kind of battery life can we expect off of these?”
“At full power, around ninety minutes,” answered Doctor Vang, “However without the weapon employed the scythe wagon can travel for approximately four hours.”
“And does it need to be controlled locally like this?”
“No, Doctor,” explained Doctor Hutchins,” The wagon is fit with video cameras, and can be controlled from the vault in what we expect to be about a six mile radius.”
“Very nice,” Doctor Byron.
At that moment something hit the fence next to me, One of the blades from the scythe wagon had broken loose and launched itself in my direction. The fence stopped it in a small shower of sparks, dropping it to the ground harmlessly. That did not stop me from flinching far too late to have saved me, tripping over my own feet, and falling onto the brown grass. The impact of my sword against my back momentarily knocked the wind out of me.
Out on the field the scythe wagon now wobbled dangerously, thrown off balance by a missing blade, “Shutting down!” Doctor Vang called out, and the blades started to slow.
“Are you okay?” Doctor Byron called to me as I got back to my feet.
“Yes, Doctor, just surprised,” I said as I brushed dust and bits of dead grass off of my jeans.
“I think there is still some work to be done,” Doctor Byron judged, “but I would very much like to see your progress. You are cleared for one more month of work, but at that time I want to see your balance situation resolved. “
Doctors Vang, Hutchins, and Carraway came over to me, “Hey, I am totally sorry about that, man,” said Doctor Vang.
“That's what the fence is for, right?” I said, trying to seem less freaked out by it than I really was.
“It is,” said Doctor Carraway, “but sometimes I think that we maybe need something more... substantial.
“I think,” announced Doctor Byron, “that we are going to need more test subjects. Justin, please take Beth and a couple of the citizen guard with you to gather some.”
“Yes, Doctor,” a tanned man with a buzzcut in a black Genetitech Security uniform snapped, “Officer O'Hara, pick two people and meet me by the cars.”
I had started doing a bit of daydreaming when I felt a hand on my shoulder, “Come on, lets go,” Beth said, and kept walking.
“What are we doing exactly?” I asked.
“Gathering test subjects, you know, zeds, zombies, animated corpses, soulless, ghouls, etcetera. You don't think I would let you hang out here and miss fun like that, do you?”
“No, why would you?”
We walked over to where the cars and trucks that had made up our caravan were waiting. Officer Justin Lassit and Beth's other civilian pick were already standing there by a large black Genetitch Laboratories delivery truck talking. I was surprised to see that the other person Beth had chose was Barbara Rosenberg; I hadn't even realized she had come out there with us.
“O'Hara and I will take the truck, you and Rosenberg will follow behind,” Justin said to me, “Stay close; I don't want to have to waste any time looking for you, okay?”
“Yes, Officer,” I said.
He seemed to think for a moment, and then said, “Call me Justin; If O'Hara thinks you're okay to call her by first namse, then you should be okay to call me by mine, okay?”
Justin and Beth got into the large truck while Barbara and I took a small blue Prius. Barbara asked me to drive, and I did not see any reason to disagree. Two uniformed officer opened the gate to let us out of the fenced in area and into the seemingly abandoned town.
One thing I noticed as we slowly drove through town was that all of the stores looked empty, as in totally cleaned out. Some stores looked like they had been broken into while others looked untouched, but every one of them looked like it had been cleaned out down to the walls. Clearly Lovelock's acquisition teams were a lot more thorough than we were in Mallville.
“So you're Gerry's friend, right?” Barbara asked,” I mean you live with him and Beth and that girl, right?”
“Yeah,” I answered, “We traveled together for a long time.”
“Gerry told me,” Barbara, “You guys were lucky to have each other. I would have killed for someone to talk to on the road.” she clutched her Annihilator tool in her lap while she spoke.
“I would'nt be here now if it wasn't for them,” I said.
“I'm lucky to be. Everyone I ran into out there was a complete asshole. There was Barry, he was a coach at the school I taught at; you know I was a teacher, right?”
“Yes.”
“Well, he tried to force himself on me at the end of the first month, and that... that didn't end well.”
“Wow, I'm sorry,” I said, not sure how to reply to that.
“Then there were these pricks that thought they were vampires. I got away from them by escaping in the daylight.”
“They thought they would burn up or something?” I asked.
“No, they were afraid of seeing each other as they really were. They said they were ugly in daylight. I wanted to point out to them that they weren't exactly fashion models in the dark either,” Barbara took a deep breath, “I wish I could have been with your group, it sounds like you guys had a better time of things than I did.”
“It wasn't all great,” I said, “We lost some people... some really important people out there.”
“Oh, yeah, huh? Gerry told me about your wife. I'm sorry about that,” Barbara said a little awkwardly.
“It's no one's fault,” I told Barbara, like I tell myself every day now, “I'm finally starting to move on now.”
“But you still miss her, huh?”
“I miss everyone I've lost, but she is certainly at the top of the list,” then, trying to change the subject a little, “but I'm sure you miss people too.”
“Yeah, I do,” Barbara said, and then stopped talking.
It was about fifteen minutes of seemingly random driving before The black truck slowed to a stop in front of us. I saw Justin and Beth hop down, Beth was pointing her vicious looking assault rifle (Beth tells me it's an FN F2000, which is good because it keeps me from having to just refer to it as a futuristic-looking gun) at something in front of the truck that I could not see. Justin motioned for me and Barbara to get out of the car and come over to him, and then slid up the back door of the truck up.
“Help me with the ramp,” Justin said as I jogged over to him, and together we extended a ramp from the back of the truck to the ground. As I handled the ramp I could feel cold air flowing out of the back of the truck, and realized that the inside of the back was refrigerated' this truck probably hauled produce or meat or something in the old world.
The inside of the back of the truck gave me pause. About two feet in from the edge of the truck was a cage wall with a sliding gate on it. On the walls of each side of the truck were four seven foot long metals poles, two to each side, with metal cable dangling from each. Even though this stuff didn't look anywhere near as amateur, it still made me think of the Hell's Postmen and their cage truck. The fact it was refrigerated was to make the zeds more sedate once they were inside the cage, which was something I'm sure the Postmen would have wished they had thought of.
Justin climbed into the back of the truck, and pulled one of the metal poles out of the bracket that was holding it to the wall, and tossed it down to me. I caught it, but not without one end clanging against the surface of the street. At one end of the pole the cable was bolted down , and looped so that the rest of the cable was threaded through the pole. About two feet from the other end of the pole the wire came out through a hole, allowing the user to tighten noose at the other end. There was also a metal clip to lock the cable in place once your target had been caught in the noose.
“Okay, so I know this is the first time doing this for either of you,” Justin started, “but I also know that you must know how to handle yourselves around the ghouls or you wouldn't be here now,” Justin pulled another of the poles free, and tossed it down to Barbara who caught it much more smoothly than I did.
“What we're going to do is simple. We need to catch some ghouls for the brains to test their projects out on. Now we don't want to waste the meds sedating them,” Justin pulled a third pole loose to demonstrate with, “so one of you just needs to catch the ghoul's head in the loop, pull it tight, and then lock it in place with the little clip down there by your hand,” he pointed at me.
“Once you've done that, then the other needs to catch the ghoul in their own loop, and do the same. Then you both just guide them up the ramp, and into the cage, there's an open space on the gate for the poles to go through when we close the door. Once we have the ghoul secured in the cage, unlock your loop, and slide it back over their head, and the cold will take care of the rest.”
“What do we do if there's more than one of them?” Barbara asked.
“Beth and I will be covering you. If you're in danger we'll take care of it,” Justin said, patting the rifle hanging from its shoulder strap and resting on his hip.
“If we want to take this one alive, you'd better get to it, “ Beth called from around the front of the truck, “I'm going to take it down if it gets much closer.”
Moving to the front of the truck we found a male zed about twenty feet away; it was shambling a direct path towards Beth, who kept the barrel of her gun trained on it. The zed was pretty short, maybe five and a half feet and was wearing a filthy white button up shirt. It's left arm was missing, the sleeve of his shirt ending in maroon tatters. A bear? Are there bears up here? Do bears eat zombies? Can a bear become a zombie (to that, the answer is apparently no; Zack Hutchins told me that the virus/bacteria/whatever doesn't seem to spread between species while I was drinking and telling my tale in Bacchus later... thank God for that).
Catching the zed was fairly easy; Barbara went around one side of it, and I went around the other. We were able to capture its head easily enough, and hold it stable between us to maneuver it around the back of the truck and up the ramp.
The gate of the cage was automatic, and Justin opened it by pushing a button that I had not noticed on the side of the truck. I noticed that he had to put a key into it first, which is probably meant to keep anyone from accidentally releasing the zeds. Getting the nooses off of the zed's neck once it was safely locked up took a bit of work though; we didn't have a lot of room in the gate's gap to move the pole around, but in time we figured it out.
It took about an hour to gather up eight zeds, and most of that was just finding them. Previous rounds of experimentation have pretty much cleaned out Harlan of its undead infestation. It's too bad we can't just chip away at all of them like this.
We got back to the middle school in time to see two white coated scientists spraying down a flaming zed through the fence with fire extinguishers. Hell, I could have told them that setting the things on fire was a bad idea.
Since we had captured the zeds, we were spared the pleasure of having to re-rope the now sluggish zeds and remove them from the back of the refrigerated truck and into the holding pen. The warm summer sun seemed to revive them pretty quickly, but not before they were safely locked up again in the holding pen..
The last two tests of the day, there had only been five planned and we missed the second and third, were both quite interesting. The first was some sort of microwave gun (I did not catch the proper name). It looked like a big square satellite dish mounted on the roof of a van.
When the door to the holding pen slid open, two zeds managed to get out before the door slid shut again; a male and a female. They startled their shuffling job towards the truck, and the satellite dish tracked the the whole way.
Once the zeds no longer had the holding pen behind them the dish activated (I guess, since I didn't hear any noise). In seconds both zeds started smoking; their skin appeared to dry out and start to crack like the meat in a TV dinner put in the microwave for too long. A couple of seconds after that they stumbled and fell to the ground, smoke and steam drifting up off of their well done corpses.
“It can cook a turkey in a minute too,” said the scientist working the gun by remote, Doctor King, earning him a good round of laughter.
The final one was probably my favorite, they called it the Vortex Ring Gun, and it was also truck mounted, though to a pickup truck this time. The device looked kind of like a super-sized grenade launcher, although unlike the microwave gun this one was controlled directly by a Genetitech Security officer.
When a zed was released into the testing area it charged the fresh meat atop the pickup, but when it was maybe twenty meters away it was suddenly thrown off of its feet by an unseen force. The zed tried to get back up off of the ground, but was flattened, as if pounded by an invisible giant's fist. The zombie did not try to get up again.
I did not get to hear the explanation behind how this gun worked, so I don't know if it was sound or air pressure, or what, but it impressed me. I can only imagine what we could have done with something like that back at Mallville. Of course I can also imagine what Kaur would have done with it too.
Over all Doctor Byron said that she was very pleased with the progress everyone was making, and that she looked forward to seeing what else people came up with by next month's test. I hope that I'll get to go on that one too.
On the ride home I ended up in a car with Barbara, and two guys named Ciaran Monroe and Christian Whitehall. Ciaran, our driver, kept hitting on Barbara the whole drive home.
“Would it be okay if I were allowed to buy the fair zombie wrangler a drink at Bacchus?” Ciaran asked.
“Well, okay,” I said, “but you're not getting past second base on the first date.”
Christian and Barbara laughed at that, and I'm pretty sure Ciaran turned red, but I could not see him clearly from the backseat.
“I meant Barbara,” Ciaran said, a little bitterly.
“One,” retorted Barbara, “the drinks at Bacchus are free, and two, I'm sorry if I offended you.”
“Whatcha mean?” Ciaran asked.
“Well in some countries giving somebody a glass of that wood stripper would be considered a hostile act.” Barbara explained. Ciaran laughed perhaps a bit too hard at that.
Barbara puts on a good front, but I think she's uncomfortable being flirted with. Maybe it's just that Ciaran was trying too hard. The problem can't be that she's not used to being hit on because she is quite attractive.
Don't get me wrong; even though I do find Barbara attractive I have no interest in her. I need to be with myself and my adopted family for awhile now, and I don't know if I have room in that part of my heart for anyone after Tara and Sharon.
We did end up at Bacchus that night, and Barbara and I sat at the bar and watched the others act far more foolish than two glasses of even stuff as strong as Milly's specialty could possibly get you. Zackariah did a pretty mean rendition of “She Blinded Me With Science”
SCIENCE!
Of course the crowning jewel of the last week was yesterday, July Fourth. Last year I spent the holiday pretty much considering suicide, but this year was so much better.
For Fourth of July Doctor Byron had a picnic put on in the park at the center of town. She wanted to do a barbecue, but that requires meat, and the best we could come up with on that front were apparently canned whole chickens and Spam. Grilled Spam is actually not bad, but the canned chicken was not so good. It's not that the chicken actually tasted bad, but more that it didn't taste like much of anything. Who thought that canning whole chickens was even a good idea?
Aside from the grilling there were vegetable and fruit based dishes that were good. Fruit salads, pies, cakes, all good stuff. I think the whole town turned out for it even though the sky was cloudy and kept threatening to rain..
You can really tell how much Doctor Byron cares about this town; she really tried to create a sense of the world before. If it weren't for the fact that most people carry weapons of some sort with them all the time it might be a little more convincing, but I'm not complaining.
Pippa and I took part in the three legged race, but lost out to Zack and Margaret Hutchins. Actually we lost to a lot of people, including Barbara and Beth. It probably would have been easier if I had just carried Pippa.
Beth and Pippa forced me to join in on a baseball game. It was civilians versus Genetitech staff. You would think that beating the scientists would be easy, but they also had security officers on their team (although Beth was allowed to play on the civvie team), so it evened things out a lot. In the end we won thanks to Beth hitting a grand slam home run in the eighth inning.
It probably would have helped if I were any good at sports, but I'm not. I did manage to make it to base twice though, and even crossed home plate once thanks to Gerry hitting a long one into left field. He says it's from his days in the major leagues, and you don't forget batting skills like that once you learn them.
There was live music on the park's bandstand. The first band was a group of scientists from the labs who called themselves The Ionics. The other was really just three teenagers called Maneki Neko and th Ch'an Chu. It was fun; Beth made me dance with her some more.
Later in the afternoon the wind picked up, it got colder, and rain seemed a near certainty, but very few people left. I don't think they wanted the illusion of normalcy to end. Going back to our homes and watching the one TV station would just be a reminder of that.
Luckily it never did rain, and the clouds actually worked in our favor. There were no fireworks, but there was still a light show. Someone from the labs built some laser projectors (or maybe they just already had them for some reason), and the clouds became the canvas for a fantastic laser light show. Nothing exploded, but there were still plenty of “oohs'” and “aahs”in the park that night.
Like I said, it's been a really good week. I only wish that Tara, Alex, Sharon, and Maria could be here to enjoy it with us. I'm not going to let that get me down though; I wouldn't want them to be all mopey like I've been if things had gone differently.
I'd better stop now; I was supposed to meet Pippa in Seventh City 20 minutes ago. Captain_Noir is level 22 now.
I never thought I would be able to say this again, but I actually feel pretty happy; like I could live happily ever after if things could just stay the way they are right now.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Forty-Ninth Entry: Dance Alone
June 25th
I have to say it, I like it here. Doctor Byron and people of Lovelock have done a great job of recreating the world as it was before. It's not a total recreation; I mean people are wandering around with weapons, and nobody pays for anything with money (in my head I keep hearing Wolf News anchors screaming about communism), but the overall feel is there. The atmosphere is certainly not as fearful as it was in Mallville.
Pippa has started going to school again, and she seems to really like it. She tried to get me to help her with her homework a couple of times, but this stuff is beyond me. I got off the math train after geometry, it's all foreign language to me after that.
I was a little surprised last week to come home and find Pippa using a laptop computer. It wasn't so much that she had one as what she was doing with it that surprised me. Far from doing any sort of homework on it, she was playing a video game, Seventh City Online, an MMO.
“Is that Seventh City?” I asked.
“Yup!”
“How are you playing that?” I ask, knowing that the servers had to have gone down with everything else.
“Lovelock has its own server. There's not a lot of players, but then there's not much kill stealing either. It balances out, sort of.”
I guess this makes sense. This is a town originally populated mostly by nerds, so some of them must have used one of those hacks that let you make your own private server. I wonder if I could find a good game of Shadowrun to join?
“How did you get a laptop?” I asked.
“School. It's to do work on, but you know, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy!”
“Is there anything else online?”
“Just local stuff. Nothing outside of town is accessible. I'm afraid your days on Facebook are still over, although there is a local Twitter server.”
“So are you going to share that computer with the rest of us?”
“Mmmmaybe. If you're nice to me,” Pippa answered teasingly.
“I'm not sure if that's worth it then.”
We've not seen very much of Beth these last couple of weeks. She has been in training with Genetitech Security, and has only been home this weekend since she started. She says that things are going really well, but it is wearing her out a little bit.
Gerry has also been gone a lot. He's only been home about one night out of every three, as Lovelock's acquisition runs are multi-day affairs involving truckloads of equipment. I'm sure that by now they are having to go quite far to even find stuff worth taking.
Gerry tells me that they are a lot less discriminating about what they take. They don't go out just looking for food and clothing, but hardware, chemicals, metal, and pretty much anything else not nailed down. He says he's trying to get them to take me on one, but I don't know if I would want to leave Pippa here alone.
As for me, well I've been doing a lot of standing around with the other guards at the gates talking. I don't really fit in with them though. None of them are even remotely geeky and it makes me miss Sharon and Tara just that much more.
Even at home I feel like I'm sort of an outsider. I can hear Beth in my head telling me what bullshit that is, but I don't really think so. Maybe it's just because it's me and Pippa on our own for the most part, and I've felt a little awkward around her ever since the morning after Sharon died.
Of course that is my problem, and I need to get my shit together and not be taking that out on Pippa. I think I understand why Pippa did it in a way that I couldn't at the time, and while it would never cross my mind to do something like that for a number of reasons, she did mean well.
In the time I've been at the gate we have had only one new survivor come in. I guess this is good though since it means that people are still out there, and that us and Alisdair's group are not the only people left in the world. I wish we saw more survivors though, and that we had seen more on our own trip here.
I am on afternoons right now, so basically at the hottest part of the day, working under the supervision of a man named Samit Linde, who was a high school football coach back in the before. He's a nice guy, but his jock and my geek don't mesh all that well. Still we manage to stay friendly.
It was right near the end of our shift at the east gate when one of the spotters, Gordon, called down that something was coming towards us. We readied ourselves and found that the something was a girl on a red bicycle. She had a head full of curly brown hair, and was wearing a pair of motorcycle goggles. Her skin was shiny with sweat.
As she approached, Samit raised his bullhorn and called out to her, “Please get off of the bike, and keep your hands where we can see them.”
The woman slowed to a stop, and got off the bike. She slipped the straps of the bulging camouflaged backpack off of her shoulders and let it drop to the surface of the road. I could see a long black object hanging from a belt holster on her right hip, it looked like a small pick ax.
“Are you going to shoot me?” the woman asked.
“Not unless you give us a reason to,” Samit answers,” Please remove any weapons, and come forward slowly.
The woman reached behind her back and slowly pulled out a pistol (I'm not sure how she thought she would be able to get to it if she needed to with that massive backpack on), and placed it on the ground. She then pulled the black pick-ax looking thing (it's called an Annihilator, I was told later, which is most certainly appropriate) from the loop on her belt, and placed it on the ground next to the gun.
With her hands in the air, the woman started moving towards us, pausing after each step like she was walking down the aisle at a wedding.
“You don't need to walk that slowly,” Samit says.
“And you don't need to keep pointing, what, four, five guns at me? You put down the guns and I might be more inclined to most faster.”
Samit raised his hand to signal the rest of us to lower our weapons. We did, but I still kept my gun half raised, not so much because I thought the woman a risk, but because I want to get into a habit of doing that. I'd hate to get killed because someone outdrew me.
The woman closed the distance between her and Samit, and stopped just beyond his reach, “So, you guys don't really look like soldiers; what is this place?”
“You didn't come here intentionally?”
“I am here intentionally in as far as I don't want to be where I came from, but I wasn't aiming for here specifically. I just got on my bike and headed in the opposite direction of the zombies, you know? It was a hell of a ride too.”
I was a little surprised at how unafraid she seemed of us. Beth, Gerry, Pippa and I handled it pretty well, I think, but we were coming here intentionally. To just stumble upon a guarded roadblock and not seem to even be scared though; I was in awe.
“Well you are safe now. My name is Samit Linde, and this is Lovelock,” Samit motioned behind him with the bullhorn. I think he was trying to be dramatic, but there's nothing really to see past the gate except for road. It's about half a mile to the actual town from there.
“I'm Barbara, Barbabra Rosenberg, and the first person to make that stupid Night of the Living Dead joke gets punched, got it?”she said, looking around at the rest of us as we came out from behind out cover.
Samit grabbed the walkie talkie off of his belt, “Base, this is Linde. I have a newcomer out here. A female, says her name is Barbara Rosenberg.”
“I will alert Doctor Byron. Transport is being dispatched,” replied to woman on the other end.
While we waited for Genetitech Security to come pick up Barbara, Samit gave her the spiel about how her items would be gone through for anything contraband, and would be delivered to her assigned residence. When he was done with that we all introduced ourselves to her. It turns out she's from Montana, and has ridden across two states to end up here. She told us about a large group of zeds that seemed to be moving as a single flock, and how she felt the best place for her to be was somewhere they weren't.
Barbara told us that before the end she was an elementary school teacher, and after the end she was the last survivor amongst her friends. I asked her about the pick ax thing, an that's when she told me the name of it. She said she found it in a hardware store, and that it is meant to be a demolition tool, but with a flat hammer head, a bladed prybar head, and a spike at the bottom of the handle that it works really well on zeds; even better than a normal crowbar. I want one now.
Before security showed up, our shit change came around, and so did Zack with his crew for the evening shift. He pulled up with his five people in a white minivan, and parked it next to the one that Samit would be driving us back to town in.
Getting out of the van, Zack approached us and the newcomer, “Hey, I heard that we had someone new,” he looked at me, “Between your group and her it looks like we may be at the start of a population boom, eh?” then to Barbara, “Name's Zackariah, but everyone just called me Zach.”
“I'm Barbara, Barbara Rosenberg.”
“Oooh,“ Zack exclaimed, and then in what was meant to be an eerie voice “They're coming to get you, Barbara.”
Barbara is quick; I guess when you deal with grade schoolers for a living you have to be. Before anyone could stop her she had lashed out with her right fist and socked Zack in the face. I don't know if she just hit that hard, he's that bad in a fight, or he was just taken by surprise, but the hit caused him to stagger back, lose his balance, and fall on his ass on the surface of the road.
“What the hell?” Zack asked, more confused than angry, as Samit, and a couple of the others ushered Barbara away from him.
Despite that incident, it looks like Barbara will be staying here in Lovelock, at least for awhile. I saw her around earlier tonight.
In one of her many attempts to create a sense of normalcy and community here in Lovelock, Doctor Byron has a dance held at the high school once a month. I went tonight, but only because I was forced to.
I was sitting at home this afternoon reading when I heard the front door open. Pippa was in her room using her laptop, and Gerry was in the shower having just gotten home from an acquisition run that had lasted three days. At first I didn't realize who it would be coming through the door.
“Hey, is anybody here?” I heard Beth's voice call.
I heard the door to Pippa's room slam open, and the thundering of teenaged feet as she ran through the house, “Beth!” she cried.
I head Beth say “Oomph!” as Pippa undoubtedly pounced on her.
I rose from my chair in front of the empty fireplace, and went to the front door to find Pippa and Beth hugging, “Do you two want some privacy?” I asked.
Pippa released Beth, “Perv!” she yelled at me, “So are you done now?” she asked Beth.
“No, but I am off for the weekend. I have to report back on Monday,” Beth said, sliding a blue gym bag off of her shoulder and dropping it onto the entryway floor, “So what are we up to? Were you going to the dance tonight?”
“I am!” Pippa shouted, “I have a date!”I think that moment is the happiest I've seen Pippa look since I've met her. She looked even happier than when we found the record collection.
I raised an eyebrow, “A date?” I asked, “That's the first I've heard of that.”
“I didn't know I was required to tell you,” Pippa said, a little snottily, “You'll meet him at the dance tonight anyway. Gerry's going to.”
“Sounds great, I'd better go and start getting ready then,” then Beth looked at me, “You're going, right?”
“I thought I'd skip it this time,” I answered.
“You will not! All you do is sit around this house and work.”
“How do you know? You haven't even been here.”
Beth just looked me in the eyes, “Tell me I'm wrong.”
“You're not, but I still don't want to go. It'll just be depressing. I don't want to dance alone.”
“You'll dance with me then,” Beth said.
“What about Gerry?”
“What about Gerry? You guys can share me if you want. It's just dancing.”
“I can't dance,” I said, basically just making excuses now.
“I've seen you dance, and no you can't, but you manage.”
“Beth, I don't-”
“So it's settled. Go get ready,” Beth said and gave me a quick hug while whispering, “Don't make me kick your ass.”
Beth grabbed up her gym bag again and smiled, “I've missed you guys,” she said, and headed for her bedroom.
So with that settled I went back to my room and tried to find my least smeggy things to wear. I decided on a black button up over a grey t-shirt and jeans. I'm eventually going to have to find some nicer clothes if I am going to keep up the illusion of living in civilization again.
I stood there alone in my room for awhile looking at the relics of Tara and Sharon. I wish they were here, then I would have someone to dance with. I held Tara's Christmas present and Sharon's glasses in my hands for awhile until it felt like a small black hole was forming in my chest. I probably would have sat there all night if Gerry hadn't knocked on the door then.
“Come on man, we're leaving, and Beth says if she has to come get you, you'll be sorry.”
I placed the items back on their shelves, took a deep breath, plastered a smile on my face, and opened the door. I must not have been as convincing looking as I had hoped I was.
“You okay?” Gerry asked when he saw me.
“Yeah, I'm just not really looking forward to this. The last dance I went to was prom, and that was with Sharon. We sat there and made fun of people for most of the nights, and she spent probably as much time dancing with other guys as with me. It ended with her getting drunk and puking out the side of the limo.”
“Sounds magical,” Gerry said.
“It was,” I said, “I have always kind of regretted it as a wasted opportunity though.”
“Well no more wasted opportunities for us! Beth wants to dance, and we need to see what kind of a boy Pippa is dating.”
“Are you drunk?” I asked.
“No! No!” Gerry protested, “Well maybe a little.”
The dance was a fairly no frills affair. There was a fog machine and lots of flashy lights, but none of the paper streamers or balloons one expects from an old fashioned high school dance (or at least the way TV shows used to portray them). There was a table with a big bowl of fresh lemonade though, and that was quite quite awesome.
The gym was crowded, I swear that half the town was there. I found Beth, Gerry, and myself some seats off to one side of the gym as soon as we got there. Beth had no intention of letting me sit though.
“Get your ass onto the dance floor!” Beth ordered.
“Beth, no..”
“Yes, dance with me, dammit! I want to talk to you,” and then to Gerry she said, “and if you don't find someone to dance with I'm coming back for you next!”
Beth dragged me, quite literally, onto the dance floor. The music was some fast-paced funky song that I've never head before, and I was able to find the rhythm pretty quickly and settle into that dance where your feet never leave the floor and you basically are just swinging your arms and hips.
“So how are you doing?” Beth asked me over the din of the music.
“I'm doing okay, I guess. You?”
“I'm great! It's so great to be back into a disciplined routine, and you should see the weapons they get to use. Kaur would have sold his left nut for this stuff.”
“Wow,” I said, not knowing what else to say.
“So have you met anyone yet?”
“I've met lots of people.”
“Any prospects?”
“You mean a relationship? No! I'm not looking for that.”
“Why not?”
“It's not even two months!” I exclaimed, getting angry now, “Why do you even care?”
“Because I care about you. You're a good guy, and you deserve to be happy.”
“I was happy.”
“I know, and someday you'll be happy again. No one is ever going to replace Sharon or Tara, but you do have a place in your heart for someone, and if you refuse to look for that someone yourself, I'm going to help you.” Beth smiled, but there was a wicked twinkle in her eye. Suddenly she was looking past me into the distance, “Hey, who is that that Gerry's talking to?”
I looked, and saw that Gerry had gone over to the drinks table and was chatting up none other than, “Barbara Rosenberg; she's new in town. I hope Gerry doesn't make any Night of the Living Dead jokes.”
“Oh, is she the one that popped Zack Hutchins? I heard about that; she gave him a black eye.”
“Yeah, she's quick.”
“She's kinda cute,” Beth said thoughtfully, “I mean I'm not digging the whole Little Orphan Annie hair thing, butshe's cute. I met his wife, you know? Margaret, she's nice, but she works with a pair of maniacs. They are building something that looks like a go-kart with helicopter blades on it. The younger guy, Grant, he says it's for sending into large groups of zeds. I would love to see it in action.”
“You seem really relaxed,” I observed.
“You think so? Maybe it's just that I feel we're safe now, you know? I've got a family in you guys, and a home, and a job again. Maybe I just feel like I am whole again.”
“Or maybe Gerry shared his stash of booze with you?”
“Maybe that too, yeah.”
The song ended and a really slow version of Beyond the Sea started. I took a step to leave the dance floor, but Beth grabbed my sleeve and yanked me back, “Where are you going?”
“To sit. The song ended, so it's Gerry's turn, remember?”
“It would be rude of me to interrupt his conversation. You'll just have to keep on dancing.”
“It's a slow song.”
“I don't have cooties,“ Beth pulled me close, “Just keep your hand on my back, okay?”
“Beth,” I whined.
“Don't make me lead.”
I put my arms around Beth, and held her at as great a length as I could manage, but she pulled me against her, and we started to sway back and forth.
“This is making me uncomfortable,” I said.
“It shouldn't. There's no reason you cannot dance with me. Nothing is ever going to happen between us; I promise.”
“I'm not sure that makes me feel any better.”
Beth laughed, “Hey, is that Pippa over there?” she pointed across the gym.
Yes, it was Pippa and she was dancing with her boyfriend. I felt my blood surge a little bit seeing the guy holding her in his arms. He was one of those greasy little slicky boys with close shaved hair and the weak moustache that makes it look like he's been drinking used motor oil.
“You want to loosen up a little?” Beth asked, pulling away from me, “You hold me any tighter and we're going to combine into one person.”
I hadn't realized how tightly I was holding her then, and loosened my grip, “Sorry.”
“So what was that? Is that the big brother wanting to protect his little sister, or was that just jealousy?”
“Okay, not funny. You know I don't have feelings like that for her.”
“I also know it gets you worked up,” Beth said with another laugh, “I'm sorry, I shouldn't be being so mean to you.”
I sighed, “No, it's okay. I think you're helping actually.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Thanks for putting up with me.”
We danced together for the next four or five songs in silence. It both felt good to hold Beth in my arms, but at the same time it made me miss Tara and Sharon even more. It should have been one of them in my arms, not Beth. We should have all made it to Lovelock together.
I noticed during the last song that we danced, “I'm Too Sexy”, that Gerry and Barbara had started dancing together. They both looked like they were having a good time together. I'm happy for him. I'm not sure what exactly there was between him and Maria, but if he can move past that, then I am truly happy for him.
Of course that does leave me as the only one of us still waiting for the next shoe to drop, but then I've always been a worrier (or whiner as Beth puts it) anyway. Maybe I should put those things away. Tara's books, and that Darth Vader head; Sharon's sword, and glasses, and the little ape. I don't know if I can do it though.
When “I'm Too Sexy” ended, Beth finally relented and lead me off the dance floor over to the refreshments table. She grabbed a lemonade and handed it to me, and then took a cup for herself.
“So how are you feeling?” Beth asked.
“Lonely,” I answered honestly.
Beth frowned and sighed, “What am I going to do with you?”
“Give up on me and let me be miserable in peace?”
“Not a chance,” she smiled.
Someone spoke our names from behind us, and we turned to see what I first thought was a ghost. But the flowing white figure was not a spirit; it was Doctor Byron dressed in a long white dress with a flowing white shawl that combined with her pale skin and hair to make her have more than a passing resemblance to Casper.
“Doctor Byron,” exclaimed Beth, “I did not expect to see you here.”
“I always put in an appearance at the dances, Beth. It would be very hypocritical of me not to,” Doctor Byron took a sip from the cup of lemonade in her hand, “I hear your training is going well. It sounds like you will be an asset to the division.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” Beth replied, smiling.
“Evie, please. And how are you adjusting to your job?” Doctor Byron asked me.
“It's a lot of standing around and talking, but it certainly beats being on the road.”
“I'm sure that it does,” Doctor Byron agreed, “but don't underestimate the importance of it. Not only are you our first line of defense against the animated corpses, but you are one of the first faces that newcomers see when they first come here; like Barbara over there,” Doctor Byron motioned in the direction of where Barbara and Gerry were still dancing.
“Of course, ma'am, I'm sorry.”
“No need to apologize, I just want you to know that you are appreciated. Everyone here needs to know that they are both important and appreciated,“ Doctor Byron said, “lthough I do still think you should talk to a counselor about what you have been through.”
“Everyone's been through the same stuff, Doctor.”
“True and untrue. While we have all experienced the same or similar events, we all have experienced them differently; we have all been effected by them differently. There is no reason to be ashamed for needing to talk about it. Still, I will not force you,” Doctor Byron took another sip from her lemonade, and started to walk away, “Have a good time, you two.”
“You want to dance some more?“ Beth asked.
“Actually, can we go get some air?”
“Sure, let's go,” Beth threw an arm around me, not like a lover, but like a friend, and we went outside.
Once in the warm summer night air Beth released me, and took a deep breath in and let it out in a contented sigh, “For the first time I really feel like things are going to work out for us.”
“I wish I felt that way.”
“I wish you did too, but we're not going to give up on you; Sharon would be mad at me if we did”
“Is that why you're doing this?”
“I promised Sharon that I would make sure you're okay, and you're not yet. Until you are okay, you're stuck with me.”
“So I'm a pity case?” I asked.
“No, stop that! You're-”
A voice cut Beth off; Pippa's voice, “Richard, I said no!”
“Pippa?” I said to Beth, and she nodded, her body tensing.
Beth and I quietly, but quickly, moved in the direction of Pippa's voice.
“Richard, stop it! I'm not ready!”
Coming around a pair of large shrubs we found Pippa and her boyfriend, Richard, sitting on a relatively secluded bench. Richard was kissing her neck while trying to slide a hand up under her pink skirt. Pippa was using both her hands to try and push his away.
“Come on, Pippa, just for a little bit.”
“No, stop!”
Richard didn't stop; instead he used his free hand to try and pull her hands away from her own lap and into his. Pippa groaned and struggled.
I felt rage build up inside me, and I stormed forward. Far from trying to stop me, Beth was right behind me. I got to the bench first, and Pippa saw me coming, “What are-”
Before Pippa could finish her question, I had Richard by the back of his shoulders, and yanked him off of Pippa and off of the bench, “Hey man!” Richard squawked as I spun him around to face me. I shoved him backwards.
Richard stumbled back right into Beth's waiting arms. She caught him, and the shoved him back to me. I caught him by the front of his shirt, and pulled it upward to bring him closer to my face, “The young lady said no,” I growled in what I think was pretty passable as menacing.
“Fuck you!” Richard said defiantly.
I had a good grip on him, and started walking, half pushing, half dragging him as I went. I shoved him through the bushes, onto the sidewalk that rings the gym building, and hard against the wall of the gym, “If I ever see you near Pippa again, my friend over there is going to make earrings out of your testicles.”
Beth came up beside us, and pulled out a pocket knife (from where, I do not know since her dress didn't appear to have pockets). She waved it in the air a little while she smiled. I'm not totally sure, but I think Richard may have pissed himself at this point.
“The next time a girl says no, you should listen, Dick,” Beth said, and her voice was oily and tinged with humor.
I pulled Richard away from the wall, and knocked him back into it again, “Now get out of here, and try to enjoy the rest of your evening.” I released his shirt, and he nearly collapsed to the ground.
Richard regains his balance, and quickly ran away, rounding the side of the gym and going out of sight.
I turned to Pippa who was still sitting on the bench, “Are you okay?”
“You asshole! That's my fucking boyfriend!” Pippa yelled, rising from the bench.
“Your fucking boyfriend needs to learn the meaning of the word 'no',” I said evenly.
“Your fucking boyfriend needs to learn some respect,” Beth added.
“Oh my God! Why do you hate me?” Pippa shrilled, and it was like she had slapped me in the face.
All the rage had drained out of me in an instant, “I don't hate you.”
“Then why are you so mean to me? Why do you avoid me? You won't spend any time with me, and now Richard's never going to talk to me again, and he's gonna tell everyone I live with a couple of psychos! I hate you, you're ruining my life!”
Pippa turned and ran off into the darkness.
“I'll go talk to her, okay?” Beth said.
“Yeah, sure, “ I said, feeling stunned.
“It's okay,” Beth reassured me, “You did what any good big brother would do. It's hard raising teenagers.” She smiled at me, and then ran after Pippa.
I stood there for awhile before walking home. I couldn't get over what Pippa said, “Why do you hate me?” Did she mean it? Did she really think I hate her? I will admit that I have kind of been avoiding her while it's been just the two of us in the house, and I really cannot explain why that is.
When I got home I went to my room and lay down without even changing. I lay there in the dark staring at where I knew Sharon and Tara's things were even though I could not actually see them; I laid there and felt sorry for myself.
Beth is right, I know she is. Sharon wouldn't want me to be like this, and neither would Tara. They would want me to try to go on with my life. I know all this, but I still can't seem to shake myself of these feelings. I don't want to try to get into a new relationship; I couldn't bear losing someone else.
Maybe that's the real reason I've been pushing Pippa away. Not because of the incident in bed, but because I'm afraid of growing too attached to her? It certainly makes more sense... and makes me feel like less of a pedo.
I lay there struggling with those thoughts for a couple of hours before I heard the front door open and close at around eleven. I didn't go out to greet them. I could hear the three of them talking, but couldn't make out what they were saying.
About twenty minutes after that there was a knock on my door, “Are you in there?” Pippa asked.
“Yeah,” I said, “you can come in if you want, but leave the light off.”
The door opened, and light from the hallway illuminated the room for a moment before Pippa closed it behind her.
“Why are you sitting in the dark?” Pippa asked.
“I'm thinking.”
“What about?”
“Things. Me. Us. What kind of life it is I am leading.”
“Can I sit?”
“Sure.”
I felt Pippa sit down on what, for the lack of a better word, I shall call my bed. She crawled up next to me, and lay there, “I don't hate you,” she said.
“I don't hate you either.”
“I know. I'm sorry I said that stuff. I know you were trying to help me out. Richard was being a creep. You only did it because you love me.”
“Did Beth tell you to say that?”
“No, but she did point it out to me. She must be getting old, it took her two blocks to catch up to me,” Pippa giggled.
“Well you did have a head start, and she was wearing heels.”
“So why have you been avoiding me if you don't hate me.”
“That's what I have been thinking about.”
“Is it because I call you a pervert?”
“No. I don't think of you that way.”
“Then why?”
“I think it's because I'm afraid I'll feel too connected to you, and if something were to happen to you I wouldn't be able to cope. If I keep you at a distance, like Maria, I won't be hurt as much.”
“You're afraid something will happen to me like it did to Sharon?”
I shrugged in the blackness, “I think that might be part of it, yeah.”
“What if I promise that nothing will happen to me?”
“Don't make promises you can't keep,” I said, “but I will try to not push you away anymore; just don't do things that make me feel creepy.”
I felt Pippa reach an arm across me in the dark, and hug me, “You don't like feeling like a pervert?”
“This would be exactly the sort of thing I mean,” I answered.
Pippa didn't let me go, instead said, “I miss Sharon.”
“So do I, Pippa, every single day. Her and Tara both.”
“Was Tara nice? You made her sound kind of bitchy.”
“She was. I don't think I do her justice on paper. I think you would have liked her too.”
“I wish I could have known her.”
“I wish you could have too,” I said, “You need to stop reading my journal though.”
“I like reading it. I makes me feel like I knew you and Sharon before. It helps me understand you when you won't talk to me.”
“It's private, Pippa. I'm not writing it for anyone but myself... at least not for anyone else until I'm gone.”
Pippa didn't reply.
We lay there for a long time in silence, and I again was left to my thoughts of how I had wasted time with someone I care about because of my own stupidity. That ends though; I'm going to spend more time with Pippa, and we're going to be more like a proper family. I will not push her away anymore, I will not make her have to sneak in to this book to try and understand me better.
I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I knew it was four in the morning and she was gone. I'm glad she didn't sleep in here with me, I would not want to put up with the crap that something like that would get me from Beth and Gerry. I'm glad that Pippa came to talk to me though; I may have kept acting like an ass until it was too late otherwise.
It's about five-thirty now, and I think I'm going to try and get some more sleep. First I am going to put away those things. I can keep my memories, my artifacts, of Sharon and Tara without needing to see them every time I open my eyes. I'm not getting rid of them, and I'm not forgetting the two women who loved me, but I'm not going to live in the past either. Of course I'm not going out looking for love either; it's just way too soon for that.
I have to say it, I like it here. Doctor Byron and people of Lovelock have done a great job of recreating the world as it was before. It's not a total recreation; I mean people are wandering around with weapons, and nobody pays for anything with money (in my head I keep hearing Wolf News anchors screaming about communism), but the overall feel is there. The atmosphere is certainly not as fearful as it was in Mallville.
Pippa has started going to school again, and she seems to really like it. She tried to get me to help her with her homework a couple of times, but this stuff is beyond me. I got off the math train after geometry, it's all foreign language to me after that.
I was a little surprised last week to come home and find Pippa using a laptop computer. It wasn't so much that she had one as what she was doing with it that surprised me. Far from doing any sort of homework on it, she was playing a video game, Seventh City Online, an MMO.
“Is that Seventh City?” I asked.
“Yup!”
“How are you playing that?” I ask, knowing that the servers had to have gone down with everything else.
“Lovelock has its own server. There's not a lot of players, but then there's not much kill stealing either. It balances out, sort of.”
I guess this makes sense. This is a town originally populated mostly by nerds, so some of them must have used one of those hacks that let you make your own private server. I wonder if I could find a good game of Shadowrun to join?
“How did you get a laptop?” I asked.
“School. It's to do work on, but you know, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy!”
“Is there anything else online?”
“Just local stuff. Nothing outside of town is accessible. I'm afraid your days on Facebook are still over, although there is a local Twitter server.”
“So are you going to share that computer with the rest of us?”
“Mmmmaybe. If you're nice to me,” Pippa answered teasingly.
“I'm not sure if that's worth it then.”
We've not seen very much of Beth these last couple of weeks. She has been in training with Genetitech Security, and has only been home this weekend since she started. She says that things are going really well, but it is wearing her out a little bit.
Gerry has also been gone a lot. He's only been home about one night out of every three, as Lovelock's acquisition runs are multi-day affairs involving truckloads of equipment. I'm sure that by now they are having to go quite far to even find stuff worth taking.
Gerry tells me that they are a lot less discriminating about what they take. They don't go out just looking for food and clothing, but hardware, chemicals, metal, and pretty much anything else not nailed down. He says he's trying to get them to take me on one, but I don't know if I would want to leave Pippa here alone.
As for me, well I've been doing a lot of standing around with the other guards at the gates talking. I don't really fit in with them though. None of them are even remotely geeky and it makes me miss Sharon and Tara just that much more.
Even at home I feel like I'm sort of an outsider. I can hear Beth in my head telling me what bullshit that is, but I don't really think so. Maybe it's just because it's me and Pippa on our own for the most part, and I've felt a little awkward around her ever since the morning after Sharon died.
Of course that is my problem, and I need to get my shit together and not be taking that out on Pippa. I think I understand why Pippa did it in a way that I couldn't at the time, and while it would never cross my mind to do something like that for a number of reasons, she did mean well.
In the time I've been at the gate we have had only one new survivor come in. I guess this is good though since it means that people are still out there, and that us and Alisdair's group are not the only people left in the world. I wish we saw more survivors though, and that we had seen more on our own trip here.
I am on afternoons right now, so basically at the hottest part of the day, working under the supervision of a man named Samit Linde, who was a high school football coach back in the before. He's a nice guy, but his jock and my geek don't mesh all that well. Still we manage to stay friendly.
It was right near the end of our shift at the east gate when one of the spotters, Gordon, called down that something was coming towards us. We readied ourselves and found that the something was a girl on a red bicycle. She had a head full of curly brown hair, and was wearing a pair of motorcycle goggles. Her skin was shiny with sweat.
As she approached, Samit raised his bullhorn and called out to her, “Please get off of the bike, and keep your hands where we can see them.”
The woman slowed to a stop, and got off the bike. She slipped the straps of the bulging camouflaged backpack off of her shoulders and let it drop to the surface of the road. I could see a long black object hanging from a belt holster on her right hip, it looked like a small pick ax.
“Are you going to shoot me?” the woman asked.
“Not unless you give us a reason to,” Samit answers,” Please remove any weapons, and come forward slowly.
The woman reached behind her back and slowly pulled out a pistol (I'm not sure how she thought she would be able to get to it if she needed to with that massive backpack on), and placed it on the ground. She then pulled the black pick-ax looking thing (it's called an Annihilator, I was told later, which is most certainly appropriate) from the loop on her belt, and placed it on the ground next to the gun.
With her hands in the air, the woman started moving towards us, pausing after each step like she was walking down the aisle at a wedding.
“You don't need to walk that slowly,” Samit says.
“And you don't need to keep pointing, what, four, five guns at me? You put down the guns and I might be more inclined to most faster.”
Samit raised his hand to signal the rest of us to lower our weapons. We did, but I still kept my gun half raised, not so much because I thought the woman a risk, but because I want to get into a habit of doing that. I'd hate to get killed because someone outdrew me.
The woman closed the distance between her and Samit, and stopped just beyond his reach, “So, you guys don't really look like soldiers; what is this place?”
“You didn't come here intentionally?”
“I am here intentionally in as far as I don't want to be where I came from, but I wasn't aiming for here specifically. I just got on my bike and headed in the opposite direction of the zombies, you know? It was a hell of a ride too.”
I was a little surprised at how unafraid she seemed of us. Beth, Gerry, Pippa and I handled it pretty well, I think, but we were coming here intentionally. To just stumble upon a guarded roadblock and not seem to even be scared though; I was in awe.
“Well you are safe now. My name is Samit Linde, and this is Lovelock,” Samit motioned behind him with the bullhorn. I think he was trying to be dramatic, but there's nothing really to see past the gate except for road. It's about half a mile to the actual town from there.
“I'm Barbara, Barbabra Rosenberg, and the first person to make that stupid Night of the Living Dead joke gets punched, got it?”she said, looking around at the rest of us as we came out from behind out cover.
Samit grabbed the walkie talkie off of his belt, “Base, this is Linde. I have a newcomer out here. A female, says her name is Barbara Rosenberg.”
“I will alert Doctor Byron. Transport is being dispatched,” replied to woman on the other end.
While we waited for Genetitech Security to come pick up Barbara, Samit gave her the spiel about how her items would be gone through for anything contraband, and would be delivered to her assigned residence. When he was done with that we all introduced ourselves to her. It turns out she's from Montana, and has ridden across two states to end up here. She told us about a large group of zeds that seemed to be moving as a single flock, and how she felt the best place for her to be was somewhere they weren't.
Barbara told us that before the end she was an elementary school teacher, and after the end she was the last survivor amongst her friends. I asked her about the pick ax thing, an that's when she told me the name of it. She said she found it in a hardware store, and that it is meant to be a demolition tool, but with a flat hammer head, a bladed prybar head, and a spike at the bottom of the handle that it works really well on zeds; even better than a normal crowbar. I want one now.
Before security showed up, our shit change came around, and so did Zack with his crew for the evening shift. He pulled up with his five people in a white minivan, and parked it next to the one that Samit would be driving us back to town in.
Getting out of the van, Zack approached us and the newcomer, “Hey, I heard that we had someone new,” he looked at me, “Between your group and her it looks like we may be at the start of a population boom, eh?” then to Barbara, “Name's Zackariah, but everyone just called me Zach.”
“I'm Barbara, Barbara Rosenberg.”
“Oooh,“ Zack exclaimed, and then in what was meant to be an eerie voice “They're coming to get you, Barbara.”
Barbara is quick; I guess when you deal with grade schoolers for a living you have to be. Before anyone could stop her she had lashed out with her right fist and socked Zack in the face. I don't know if she just hit that hard, he's that bad in a fight, or he was just taken by surprise, but the hit caused him to stagger back, lose his balance, and fall on his ass on the surface of the road.
“What the hell?” Zack asked, more confused than angry, as Samit, and a couple of the others ushered Barbara away from him.
Despite that incident, it looks like Barbara will be staying here in Lovelock, at least for awhile. I saw her around earlier tonight.
In one of her many attempts to create a sense of normalcy and community here in Lovelock, Doctor Byron has a dance held at the high school once a month. I went tonight, but only because I was forced to.
I was sitting at home this afternoon reading when I heard the front door open. Pippa was in her room using her laptop, and Gerry was in the shower having just gotten home from an acquisition run that had lasted three days. At first I didn't realize who it would be coming through the door.
“Hey, is anybody here?” I heard Beth's voice call.
I heard the door to Pippa's room slam open, and the thundering of teenaged feet as she ran through the house, “Beth!” she cried.
I head Beth say “Oomph!” as Pippa undoubtedly pounced on her.
I rose from my chair in front of the empty fireplace, and went to the front door to find Pippa and Beth hugging, “Do you two want some privacy?” I asked.
Pippa released Beth, “Perv!” she yelled at me, “So are you done now?” she asked Beth.
“No, but I am off for the weekend. I have to report back on Monday,” Beth said, sliding a blue gym bag off of her shoulder and dropping it onto the entryway floor, “So what are we up to? Were you going to the dance tonight?”
“I am!” Pippa shouted, “I have a date!”I think that moment is the happiest I've seen Pippa look since I've met her. She looked even happier than when we found the record collection.
I raised an eyebrow, “A date?” I asked, “That's the first I've heard of that.”
“I didn't know I was required to tell you,” Pippa said, a little snottily, “You'll meet him at the dance tonight anyway. Gerry's going to.”
“Sounds great, I'd better go and start getting ready then,” then Beth looked at me, “You're going, right?”
“I thought I'd skip it this time,” I answered.
“You will not! All you do is sit around this house and work.”
“How do you know? You haven't even been here.”
Beth just looked me in the eyes, “Tell me I'm wrong.”
“You're not, but I still don't want to go. It'll just be depressing. I don't want to dance alone.”
“You'll dance with me then,” Beth said.
“What about Gerry?”
“What about Gerry? You guys can share me if you want. It's just dancing.”
“I can't dance,” I said, basically just making excuses now.
“I've seen you dance, and no you can't, but you manage.”
“Beth, I don't-”
“So it's settled. Go get ready,” Beth said and gave me a quick hug while whispering, “Don't make me kick your ass.”
Beth grabbed up her gym bag again and smiled, “I've missed you guys,” she said, and headed for her bedroom.
So with that settled I went back to my room and tried to find my least smeggy things to wear. I decided on a black button up over a grey t-shirt and jeans. I'm eventually going to have to find some nicer clothes if I am going to keep up the illusion of living in civilization again.
I stood there alone in my room for awhile looking at the relics of Tara and Sharon. I wish they were here, then I would have someone to dance with. I held Tara's Christmas present and Sharon's glasses in my hands for awhile until it felt like a small black hole was forming in my chest. I probably would have sat there all night if Gerry hadn't knocked on the door then.
“Come on man, we're leaving, and Beth says if she has to come get you, you'll be sorry.”
I placed the items back on their shelves, took a deep breath, plastered a smile on my face, and opened the door. I must not have been as convincing looking as I had hoped I was.
“You okay?” Gerry asked when he saw me.
“Yeah, I'm just not really looking forward to this. The last dance I went to was prom, and that was with Sharon. We sat there and made fun of people for most of the nights, and she spent probably as much time dancing with other guys as with me. It ended with her getting drunk and puking out the side of the limo.”
“Sounds magical,” Gerry said.
“It was,” I said, “I have always kind of regretted it as a wasted opportunity though.”
“Well no more wasted opportunities for us! Beth wants to dance, and we need to see what kind of a boy Pippa is dating.”
“Are you drunk?” I asked.
“No! No!” Gerry protested, “Well maybe a little.”
The dance was a fairly no frills affair. There was a fog machine and lots of flashy lights, but none of the paper streamers or balloons one expects from an old fashioned high school dance (or at least the way TV shows used to portray them). There was a table with a big bowl of fresh lemonade though, and that was quite quite awesome.
The gym was crowded, I swear that half the town was there. I found Beth, Gerry, and myself some seats off to one side of the gym as soon as we got there. Beth had no intention of letting me sit though.
“Get your ass onto the dance floor!” Beth ordered.
“Beth, no..”
“Yes, dance with me, dammit! I want to talk to you,” and then to Gerry she said, “and if you don't find someone to dance with I'm coming back for you next!”
Beth dragged me, quite literally, onto the dance floor. The music was some fast-paced funky song that I've never head before, and I was able to find the rhythm pretty quickly and settle into that dance where your feet never leave the floor and you basically are just swinging your arms and hips.
“So how are you doing?” Beth asked me over the din of the music.
“I'm doing okay, I guess. You?”
“I'm great! It's so great to be back into a disciplined routine, and you should see the weapons they get to use. Kaur would have sold his left nut for this stuff.”
“Wow,” I said, not knowing what else to say.
“So have you met anyone yet?”
“I've met lots of people.”
“Any prospects?”
“You mean a relationship? No! I'm not looking for that.”
“Why not?”
“It's not even two months!” I exclaimed, getting angry now, “Why do you even care?”
“Because I care about you. You're a good guy, and you deserve to be happy.”
“I was happy.”
“I know, and someday you'll be happy again. No one is ever going to replace Sharon or Tara, but you do have a place in your heart for someone, and if you refuse to look for that someone yourself, I'm going to help you.” Beth smiled, but there was a wicked twinkle in her eye. Suddenly she was looking past me into the distance, “Hey, who is that that Gerry's talking to?”
I looked, and saw that Gerry had gone over to the drinks table and was chatting up none other than, “Barbara Rosenberg; she's new in town. I hope Gerry doesn't make any Night of the Living Dead jokes.”
“Oh, is she the one that popped Zack Hutchins? I heard about that; she gave him a black eye.”
“Yeah, she's quick.”
“She's kinda cute,” Beth said thoughtfully, “I mean I'm not digging the whole Little Orphan Annie hair thing, butshe's cute. I met his wife, you know? Margaret, she's nice, but she works with a pair of maniacs. They are building something that looks like a go-kart with helicopter blades on it. The younger guy, Grant, he says it's for sending into large groups of zeds. I would love to see it in action.”
“You seem really relaxed,” I observed.
“You think so? Maybe it's just that I feel we're safe now, you know? I've got a family in you guys, and a home, and a job again. Maybe I just feel like I am whole again.”
“Or maybe Gerry shared his stash of booze with you?”
“Maybe that too, yeah.”
The song ended and a really slow version of Beyond the Sea started. I took a step to leave the dance floor, but Beth grabbed my sleeve and yanked me back, “Where are you going?”
“To sit. The song ended, so it's Gerry's turn, remember?”
“It would be rude of me to interrupt his conversation. You'll just have to keep on dancing.”
“It's a slow song.”
“I don't have cooties,“ Beth pulled me close, “Just keep your hand on my back, okay?”
“Beth,” I whined.
“Don't make me lead.”
I put my arms around Beth, and held her at as great a length as I could manage, but she pulled me against her, and we started to sway back and forth.
“This is making me uncomfortable,” I said.
“It shouldn't. There's no reason you cannot dance with me. Nothing is ever going to happen between us; I promise.”
“I'm not sure that makes me feel any better.”
Beth laughed, “Hey, is that Pippa over there?” she pointed across the gym.
Yes, it was Pippa and she was dancing with her boyfriend. I felt my blood surge a little bit seeing the guy holding her in his arms. He was one of those greasy little slicky boys with close shaved hair and the weak moustache that makes it look like he's been drinking used motor oil.
“You want to loosen up a little?” Beth asked, pulling away from me, “You hold me any tighter and we're going to combine into one person.”
I hadn't realized how tightly I was holding her then, and loosened my grip, “Sorry.”
“So what was that? Is that the big brother wanting to protect his little sister, or was that just jealousy?”
“Okay, not funny. You know I don't have feelings like that for her.”
“I also know it gets you worked up,” Beth said with another laugh, “I'm sorry, I shouldn't be being so mean to you.”
I sighed, “No, it's okay. I think you're helping actually.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Thanks for putting up with me.”
We danced together for the next four or five songs in silence. It both felt good to hold Beth in my arms, but at the same time it made me miss Tara and Sharon even more. It should have been one of them in my arms, not Beth. We should have all made it to Lovelock together.
I noticed during the last song that we danced, “I'm Too Sexy”, that Gerry and Barbara had started dancing together. They both looked like they were having a good time together. I'm happy for him. I'm not sure what exactly there was between him and Maria, but if he can move past that, then I am truly happy for him.
Of course that does leave me as the only one of us still waiting for the next shoe to drop, but then I've always been a worrier (or whiner as Beth puts it) anyway. Maybe I should put those things away. Tara's books, and that Darth Vader head; Sharon's sword, and glasses, and the little ape. I don't know if I can do it though.
When “I'm Too Sexy” ended, Beth finally relented and lead me off the dance floor over to the refreshments table. She grabbed a lemonade and handed it to me, and then took a cup for herself.
“So how are you feeling?” Beth asked.
“Lonely,” I answered honestly.
Beth frowned and sighed, “What am I going to do with you?”
“Give up on me and let me be miserable in peace?”
“Not a chance,” she smiled.
Someone spoke our names from behind us, and we turned to see what I first thought was a ghost. But the flowing white figure was not a spirit; it was Doctor Byron dressed in a long white dress with a flowing white shawl that combined with her pale skin and hair to make her have more than a passing resemblance to Casper.
“Doctor Byron,” exclaimed Beth, “I did not expect to see you here.”
“I always put in an appearance at the dances, Beth. It would be very hypocritical of me not to,” Doctor Byron took a sip from the cup of lemonade in her hand, “I hear your training is going well. It sounds like you will be an asset to the division.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” Beth replied, smiling.
“Evie, please. And how are you adjusting to your job?” Doctor Byron asked me.
“It's a lot of standing around and talking, but it certainly beats being on the road.”
“I'm sure that it does,” Doctor Byron agreed, “but don't underestimate the importance of it. Not only are you our first line of defense against the animated corpses, but you are one of the first faces that newcomers see when they first come here; like Barbara over there,” Doctor Byron motioned in the direction of where Barbara and Gerry were still dancing.
“Of course, ma'am, I'm sorry.”
“No need to apologize, I just want you to know that you are appreciated. Everyone here needs to know that they are both important and appreciated,“ Doctor Byron said, “lthough I do still think you should talk to a counselor about what you have been through.”
“Everyone's been through the same stuff, Doctor.”
“True and untrue. While we have all experienced the same or similar events, we all have experienced them differently; we have all been effected by them differently. There is no reason to be ashamed for needing to talk about it. Still, I will not force you,” Doctor Byron took another sip from her lemonade, and started to walk away, “Have a good time, you two.”
“You want to dance some more?“ Beth asked.
“Actually, can we go get some air?”
“Sure, let's go,” Beth threw an arm around me, not like a lover, but like a friend, and we went outside.
Once in the warm summer night air Beth released me, and took a deep breath in and let it out in a contented sigh, “For the first time I really feel like things are going to work out for us.”
“I wish I felt that way.”
“I wish you did too, but we're not going to give up on you; Sharon would be mad at me if we did”
“Is that why you're doing this?”
“I promised Sharon that I would make sure you're okay, and you're not yet. Until you are okay, you're stuck with me.”
“So I'm a pity case?” I asked.
“No, stop that! You're-”
A voice cut Beth off; Pippa's voice, “Richard, I said no!”
“Pippa?” I said to Beth, and she nodded, her body tensing.
Beth and I quietly, but quickly, moved in the direction of Pippa's voice.
“Richard, stop it! I'm not ready!”
Coming around a pair of large shrubs we found Pippa and her boyfriend, Richard, sitting on a relatively secluded bench. Richard was kissing her neck while trying to slide a hand up under her pink skirt. Pippa was using both her hands to try and push his away.
“Come on, Pippa, just for a little bit.”
“No, stop!”
Richard didn't stop; instead he used his free hand to try and pull her hands away from her own lap and into his. Pippa groaned and struggled.
I felt rage build up inside me, and I stormed forward. Far from trying to stop me, Beth was right behind me. I got to the bench first, and Pippa saw me coming, “What are-”
Before Pippa could finish her question, I had Richard by the back of his shoulders, and yanked him off of Pippa and off of the bench, “Hey man!” Richard squawked as I spun him around to face me. I shoved him backwards.
Richard stumbled back right into Beth's waiting arms. She caught him, and the shoved him back to me. I caught him by the front of his shirt, and pulled it upward to bring him closer to my face, “The young lady said no,” I growled in what I think was pretty passable as menacing.
“Fuck you!” Richard said defiantly.
I had a good grip on him, and started walking, half pushing, half dragging him as I went. I shoved him through the bushes, onto the sidewalk that rings the gym building, and hard against the wall of the gym, “If I ever see you near Pippa again, my friend over there is going to make earrings out of your testicles.”
Beth came up beside us, and pulled out a pocket knife (from where, I do not know since her dress didn't appear to have pockets). She waved it in the air a little while she smiled. I'm not totally sure, but I think Richard may have pissed himself at this point.
“The next time a girl says no, you should listen, Dick,” Beth said, and her voice was oily and tinged with humor.
I pulled Richard away from the wall, and knocked him back into it again, “Now get out of here, and try to enjoy the rest of your evening.” I released his shirt, and he nearly collapsed to the ground.
Richard regains his balance, and quickly ran away, rounding the side of the gym and going out of sight.
I turned to Pippa who was still sitting on the bench, “Are you okay?”
“You asshole! That's my fucking boyfriend!” Pippa yelled, rising from the bench.
“Your fucking boyfriend needs to learn the meaning of the word 'no',” I said evenly.
“Your fucking boyfriend needs to learn some respect,” Beth added.
“Oh my God! Why do you hate me?” Pippa shrilled, and it was like she had slapped me in the face.
All the rage had drained out of me in an instant, “I don't hate you.”
“Then why are you so mean to me? Why do you avoid me? You won't spend any time with me, and now Richard's never going to talk to me again, and he's gonna tell everyone I live with a couple of psychos! I hate you, you're ruining my life!”
Pippa turned and ran off into the darkness.
“I'll go talk to her, okay?” Beth said.
“Yeah, sure, “ I said, feeling stunned.
“It's okay,” Beth reassured me, “You did what any good big brother would do. It's hard raising teenagers.” She smiled at me, and then ran after Pippa.
I stood there for awhile before walking home. I couldn't get over what Pippa said, “Why do you hate me?” Did she mean it? Did she really think I hate her? I will admit that I have kind of been avoiding her while it's been just the two of us in the house, and I really cannot explain why that is.
When I got home I went to my room and lay down without even changing. I lay there in the dark staring at where I knew Sharon and Tara's things were even though I could not actually see them; I laid there and felt sorry for myself.
Beth is right, I know she is. Sharon wouldn't want me to be like this, and neither would Tara. They would want me to try to go on with my life. I know all this, but I still can't seem to shake myself of these feelings. I don't want to try to get into a new relationship; I couldn't bear losing someone else.
Maybe that's the real reason I've been pushing Pippa away. Not because of the incident in bed, but because I'm afraid of growing too attached to her? It certainly makes more sense... and makes me feel like less of a pedo.
I lay there struggling with those thoughts for a couple of hours before I heard the front door open and close at around eleven. I didn't go out to greet them. I could hear the three of them talking, but couldn't make out what they were saying.
About twenty minutes after that there was a knock on my door, “Are you in there?” Pippa asked.
“Yeah,” I said, “you can come in if you want, but leave the light off.”
The door opened, and light from the hallway illuminated the room for a moment before Pippa closed it behind her.
“Why are you sitting in the dark?” Pippa asked.
“I'm thinking.”
“What about?”
“Things. Me. Us. What kind of life it is I am leading.”
“Can I sit?”
“Sure.”
I felt Pippa sit down on what, for the lack of a better word, I shall call my bed. She crawled up next to me, and lay there, “I don't hate you,” she said.
“I don't hate you either.”
“I know. I'm sorry I said that stuff. I know you were trying to help me out. Richard was being a creep. You only did it because you love me.”
“Did Beth tell you to say that?”
“No, but she did point it out to me. She must be getting old, it took her two blocks to catch up to me,” Pippa giggled.
“Well you did have a head start, and she was wearing heels.”
“So why have you been avoiding me if you don't hate me.”
“That's what I have been thinking about.”
“Is it because I call you a pervert?”
“No. I don't think of you that way.”
“Then why?”
“I think it's because I'm afraid I'll feel too connected to you, and if something were to happen to you I wouldn't be able to cope. If I keep you at a distance, like Maria, I won't be hurt as much.”
“You're afraid something will happen to me like it did to Sharon?”
I shrugged in the blackness, “I think that might be part of it, yeah.”
“What if I promise that nothing will happen to me?”
“Don't make promises you can't keep,” I said, “but I will try to not push you away anymore; just don't do things that make me feel creepy.”
I felt Pippa reach an arm across me in the dark, and hug me, “You don't like feeling like a pervert?”
“This would be exactly the sort of thing I mean,” I answered.
Pippa didn't let me go, instead said, “I miss Sharon.”
“So do I, Pippa, every single day. Her and Tara both.”
“Was Tara nice? You made her sound kind of bitchy.”
“She was. I don't think I do her justice on paper. I think you would have liked her too.”
“I wish I could have known her.”
“I wish you could have too,” I said, “You need to stop reading my journal though.”
“I like reading it. I makes me feel like I knew you and Sharon before. It helps me understand you when you won't talk to me.”
“It's private, Pippa. I'm not writing it for anyone but myself... at least not for anyone else until I'm gone.”
Pippa didn't reply.
We lay there for a long time in silence, and I again was left to my thoughts of how I had wasted time with someone I care about because of my own stupidity. That ends though; I'm going to spend more time with Pippa, and we're going to be more like a proper family. I will not push her away anymore, I will not make her have to sneak in to this book to try and understand me better.
I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I knew it was four in the morning and she was gone. I'm glad she didn't sleep in here with me, I would not want to put up with the crap that something like that would get me from Beth and Gerry. I'm glad that Pippa came to talk to me though; I may have kept acting like an ass until it was too late otherwise.
It's about five-thirty now, and I think I'm going to try and get some more sleep. First I am going to put away those things. I can keep my memories, my artifacts, of Sharon and Tara without needing to see them every time I open my eyes. I'm not getting rid of them, and I'm not forgetting the two women who loved me, but I'm not going to live in the past either. Of course I'm not going out looking for love either; it's just way too soon for that.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)