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Series: No Day But Today
Title: Meanwhile, Back at the Canadian Forces Base
Pair: Klaine
Word Count: 3882
Warning: suggestions of offscreen violence and racism
Summary: A group of survivors hiding out in a Canadian Forces Base takes stock of its lost members, finds a scout from another group, and begins to make plans.
AN: Because I needed MORE characters. Also… pretty much no canon characters in this part.
“There’s a good chance that Arizona isn’t coming back, West.”
“That’s okay.” West stood with his palms flat to the table. “He was always kind of was a mad, lecherous fuck.”
The two men stood in the ‘war room’ as they called it, despite the distinct lack of military at this base. The first an aging man with brown hair gone mostly white. The second, a tall, fair-skinned man with the fading affectations of one much accustomed to being given his way. His once-sleek, once too well-coiffed dark brown hair hung over his forehead; occasionally he brushed it out of his steely, blue eyes. Next to him stood his sister Tea, who was small and Asian, and had pulled her thick, curly hair into pigtails with sparkly hair bands that had purple ladybugs on them. She wore a tattered skirt with ripped stockings under her boots, and leaned forward onto the table, her critical brandy-colored eyes full of complex workings, as they counted off the scouts that had never come back.
West flipped a hand through his hair, looked down at the girl, and frowned. Fine, no one would miss Arizona. Especially not West, not after that ass had tried to get frisky with his little sister. He squeezed Tea’s shoulder, causing her to lean into him. But Tomcat and Delaware had been good fighters. They were down to seven people now, and it was getting harder to get in and out of the base. Their supplies were dwindling, in no small part because the base had been almost gutted when they’d settled in here. They were going to have to come up with a solution, and soon.
“There’s always the group in Quebec,” an older man with brown hair gone mostly white suggested.
West gave a bored look. “I’d rather have my face peeled off and eaten.”
The girl scrunched up her nose.
“Look, we’re gonna have to make some compromises, West. We need more people. More women anyway, if this is going to work.”
West rolled his eyes at the blatant and cliched drive towards repopulating the Earth. This was hardly Eden. “Not necessarily, Red. We can’t keep on our feet if we’re nursing a bunch of meat burritos. They’d be better used as bait.”
The girl’s eyes bulged, and she tugged on his sleeve.
He eyed her. “Sorry, Tea.”
“I just think we should look north again. Arizona thought there might be a settlement up there. It’s only been a few months since the outbreak hit Canada. It’s not crazy to think someone outsmarted the creeps.”
“How’s that outsmart them, sweetheart?” Red asked.
Red was such a dick around Tea. West couldn’t fault him for thinking she was younger than she was. The continued affectation for cute things, even in the face of utter disaster, didn’t help. West was used to thinking of her as a kid, since he was thirty-five, but she was twenty now, even if she looked twelve. More a woman than a girl. He thought sometimes that his sister went out of her way to let people talk down to her.
It had caused at least one jerk to forget how dangerous she could be, just long enough to keep them both alive.
Tea shrugged. “You noticed that the creepers gave us a break while the weather got cold. That’s because they froze. And not all of them thawed out, y’know, or they’d be thicker by now. You have to realize how much water is in the brain, in the entire human body. We’re basically water balloons. And once you destroy the brain, by bullet or by damaging enough of the tissue, they’re done.”
“Time for the creeper rave,” West muttered.
Tea’s lips curved. Her brother had been joking off and on about getting the creeps wasted for months, but then again, they tottered around like they were already stoned. He just liked to see her smile. She didn’t smile enough anymore. Not since their father had tried to kill her.
“I don’t think that’s such a bad idea, either, but we need the supplies to make it happen,” Tea reminded him. “Not a party. A gas that destroys the brain. I just need the right chemicals.”
She had been taking classes at Ohio State during her last year of delinquency at whatever residency high school their parents had dropped her off at when she’d gotten booted from the last one. West didn’t doubt she could do something, if she got the supplies and some help, but he had to wonder if that wouldn’t just finish them all off faster.
Red frowned at her. Tea smiled and twirled a pigtail around her finger.
“Gonna go check on the hostages.”
“Be careful!” West shouted after her.
She skipped away.
She was definitely playing up the little girl routine. West would have laughed, if it didn’t make him cringe and fret about the month she’d spent out of his company when they’d gotten separated. West hoped it gave her some protection. That was hard to come by, these days. And she was all he had left, after killing his father and abandoning his baby brother. Tea’s mother, his step-mother (but not the wicked kind), had gone to the fever, and they hadn’t had time to bury her before they left. Nor had they realized, at the time, she would be coming back.
It sort of haunted him to think of her still back home, rotting in her lavender nightgown, and snapping at whoever dared passed by their lovely, two story home in the suburbs. There was no way to put her to rest, now. And he saw the ghost of her, every time he looked at his little sister.
***
Tea lounged in the doorway, studying the figures chained to the wall. She often wondered what it would have been like, if this had happened five, ten years in the future. After she’d gotten some more experience in the labs. After she’d had her chance to be really wild, and really grow up a little.
She had some experience. She understood much about chemistry and the human body, no matter what the rest of the group thought of her glitterfemme gender performance. They should’ve seen her in the clubs. She could drop it, but then she wasn’t sure who she’d be. But experience she had just wasn’t enough. She could examine the brain tissue of the infected, if West would knock a head off for her to dissect in the lab. She knew what she was looking at. It was just so hard to put together what to do.
She’d given up on finding a cure. There had been one, and they had been treating people at the shelters and hospitals on the border. Or so the radio reports had said. She and her big brother hadn’t gotten there before the outbreak spread to Canada, and planes started swooping over all the big cities along the border and in the states, dropping down fiery death.
A creeper rose, swiping an attenuated arm at her as she jumped back swiftly. It growled, angrily, the flabby remnants of its lips curling back as it struggled against its chains. Hungry for her. She licked her own warm, living lips, skirted around the creeps and slipped into the lab.
She was so tired. And she missed... everyone. In her past life, she had been the fuck-up of the family. Smart, but always in trouble, one way or another. Her older brother did everything easy. He blazed out west and started to make a name for himself by the time she was really starting to make a mess. Her little brother had trouble focusing and he’d had a hard time at his former school, but he was a good kid. Popular. Talented as sin. Good at sports. Handsomer than was good for him.
It’s possible she missed him the most of all. She’d always been his biggest advocate in their family. He was so kindhearted. Maybe he was too good to stay in a world like this. But she loved them all. It was like a hole inside her, an open wound where they had been, and somehow she had to keep on without them. Even West... He was gone, more or less. He had been more of an egomaniac before. So proud of his talent, his charisma.
Tea reached into a drawer, then looked into a little mirror standing up on the table at the gaunt face, her once sun-kissed olive complexion gone sallow. Slowly, as though precision meant the world, she slid the purple hue thickly over her lips. After putting the tube away, she pulled on her gloves, donned the safety glasses, and went in to look at her specimens.
If she couldn’t heal, she could probably destroy.
***
West ran into the area surrounding the landing pad where the helicopter was coming down. Red and Twink were already there. Red had his hands on his hips as he looked up at the chopper, head cocked to the side.
“Oh, my god. Too ‘em long enough, huh?” Twink muttered. He crossed his arms and stepped back towards West. “I hope they’re all okay...”
West shook his head and waited. The boys had been gone a long time, but West was cautious. Unlike Twinkie Boy, the softy. Hence the codename. Unlike the others, Twink hadn’t chosen the name himself.
“Caught a stray, eh?” Red said, raising a white brow high.
West licked his lips narrowing his eyes cautiously as the door opened.
Tex and Oak pulled a middle-aged black man out with them. He was bound and gagged, which caused Twink to cover his mouth in upset. West strode forward.
“Where’s-?”
“Powerin’ the chopper down. We got some goods,” Oak said. He dropped their captive down in the dirt.
Tex looked down at him. “This fucker knows somethin’. We caught him blazin’ along the road in a car by hisself.”
“There were probably others once,” West said. More to work out things for himself than to get their opinions. Red was worth throwing something by, sometimes Twink if the kid wasn’t nervous, and rarely the pilot Nadir would give something useful, if it wasn’t too much trouble. Tex and Oak had named themselves well. Talking to them was like talking to a pair of busted bricks.
West circled around the man slowly.
“Could’ve been by himself,” Oak argued.
“He doesn’t look like a lone wolf. He looks like he belongs to someone.” West squatted down on his haunches and looked the man in his eyes. “Isn’t that right? Do you have a family somewhere? Getting supplies to take care of them? I understand that.”
“Didn’t have any supplies,” Tex added. “Just the car, a gun and bullets... water. Some maps.”
“Maps.” West looked between them. “If he didn’t have supplies, he’s on a different mission. Someone else is doing the foraging. He’s with a group, or a settlement, maybe. He could afford to only bring enough food for a few days.”
His eyes burned into them both. “Tell me you had the sense to take the maps.”
“I grabbed them,” Nadir said as she dropped out of the chopper, all long, powerful limbs and attitude.
West met the their captive’s eye, then reached toward him. When the man jerked backward, West held up his hands and gave him a dashing grin. “No need for that. Tex and Oak are the muscle. I’m sure every group’s got a pair of them. We hate the bastards, but we need them to keep our loved ones safe.”
Nadir snorted, took a swig of water, and headed away from the group at a good clip. “I’m gonna go grab shower. Don’t bother me.”
West reached for the man’s gag again and untied it. “There,” he said gently. “Better? Now, if we untie you, are you going to cooperate, play nice?”
“Funny you talkin’ about playing nice, what with all your boys were callin’ me as they kicked my black ass,” the man said wryly. “‘Tex had some fun words I hadn’t heard since crossin’ over the border here. Words I’d hoped we’d left at the end of the world.”
“I am sorry about that. Do you need any medical care? Our nurse got killed a few weeks back, but my little sister knows a think or two. She might be able to help.” West made eye contact. That showed people that you were sincere.
“I might make it. But if you think I’m gonna tell you where those maps lead, you’re in for something else.”
West rubbed his palm over his mouth. “They call me West. What do you go by?”
“Forest,” he replied, completely nonplussed by the people around him.
“Oh, yeah? Oak, he’s a bigger man than you. You’re one tree. He’s a whole damn forest.” West grinned.
“I’m not so interested in making friends just now,” Forest said. “If you don’t mind.”
“Look, we’re all out here trying to survive the best we can. Maybe our groups can help each other,” West said. Then, to emphasize, he pointed. “I know that we can make it through this, if people can only stick together. C’mon. I’ll untie you, and we can talk diplomacy between our group and yours.”
“Who said I had a group?”
West pressed his lips together.
“You’re a pretty enough boy, but you don’t fool me.” Forest eyed him. “Somethin’s off here, and you think I’m gonna take one look at your pretty white-boy smile and roll over? Nothin’ happenin’, kid. I’m too old and too goddamn stubborn to let your fool acting lead me and mind down the road to hell again.”
“I’m not acting.”
“You sure ain’t being straight with me, either.” Forest shook his head. “Whatever you folks want, you’re ain’t gettin’ it. You read me, pretty boy?”
West straightened up and looked away for a moment. “Look, Forest. I don’t know what you think we’re going to do-”
“I know what those two are gonna do.” Forest jerked his head back in Tex and Oak’s direction. “I know what they want. They been gossipin’ on it the whole damn way. And it’s not happening! You cain’t get me to tell you where my “group” is, if I got a group, how many, what kinda weapons, nothin’! I ain’t telling. You try me. I’d rather die. I’d rather die than unleash men like them on anybody.”
“Hate to break it to ya, but we can probably figure this one out on our own,” Red said.
“Who needs to?” Oak said. “We’ll get it outta him.”
“No,” West ordered.
His eyes widened as the two big men, one from the South and one from somewhere in Newfoundland, grabbed Forest and dragged him off, with Red following. West had grown accustomed to the group listening to him, usually without question.
His stomach felt like it had dropped to the ground.
“Are they gonna...?” Twink’s voice was small and young as he was.
“Dunno.” West touched his fist to his lips and narrowed his eyes. “Dunno.”
***
Forest had been away from his own too long, but not so long that he didn’t appreciate the stark difference between his folks and theirs. It was palpable, the disease here. The air was thick with it.
There were scraps of humanity to be had in this place, but they were so faded, so nearly lost. Some flickered in the eyes of the manchild who had tried to reason with him. Some in that boy shaking behind the men. But in the men who had beat him, in the older man, and in that tall hellion of a pilot, it was gone. They were practically walkers.
He’d seen it before, in Blaine. Such a sweet boy now, he’d been almost lost when Forest had met him. So maybe they could be saved. But that wasn’t his priority. That would be getting home to his baby girl. He couldn’t leave her like this, just disappear out of her life. She was still a child, no matter how brave she was, and she needed her daddy.
The pilot strode in with West on her heels, arguing impotently with her. She dropped down to his level, gripped his chin in her long fingers, and pulled his face forward.
“Little sister was right, huh? You got a colony up north. Food? Ammo? All that shit?”
She asked, but it wasn’t really a question. She had the maps in one hand. Her lips curved to one side.
“You lead us? An’ we’ll let ya live. Otherwise, you’re creep bait. The last thing I need here is another horny asshole.”
West frowned at her cold words. The woman pushed Forest back, and he took a breath.
“Now I’m not interested in hurtin’ you, hon. How could I?”
“I’m not your ‘hon.’ Where the fuck are you from?”
“I’m guessin’ you’re from Jersey,” he replied. He noted the surprise register on her features. “The accent. I’m from Georgia.”
“Then why do they call you ‘Forest’?” She crossed her arms and tilted her head slightly.
“S’my name,” he answered with a shrug.
She frowned, seeming confused. “You gave us your name. Your real name? Why the hell would’ja do that?”
“Like you could track down where I used to live? What difference does it make?”
“All the difference.” She stepped closer to him and pointed. “You have until morning before I chain you up and dangle you from my chopper to lead off the creeps from our front gate. You’re either with us or against us.”
West watched her with wide eyes as she stormed out.
“She’s a sweetheart,” Forest said. He leaned back and closed his eyes. The blood was pounding through his head.
“She’ll do it. Forest, you have to tell them-”
“You think I ain’t had good cop/bad cop played on me?”
“That’s not what this is.”
Forest looked up at West again. His pretty boy hair was a mess.
“You’ll die,” West said breathlessly. He sounded genuine, this time. Sympathetic, and scared.
“This is worth dyin’ for. My life isn’t worth hers.”
West came at him aggressively, then stopped just short of Forest. His eyes, bright sky blue, burned with anger. Then all the fight went out of him, and he just shook his head and strolled out of the room.
“You’re right.”
Forest drew in a deep breath and blinked, slowly. He had to keep his wits about him. If there was any chance of escaping from these broken fools, he had to try.
***
When West came to Tea’s bedroom that night, he looked old. Like someone had come and sucked some years off of him. She was laying on her stomach, reading, and he flopped down next to her, rubbing his temple.
“What’s the matter, old man?”
“Shuddap.”
Tea faked a sniffle. West didn’t laugh. He just sighed, heavily, and looked up at the ceiling.
“Seriously.” Tea closed her book. “What happened? Is it about the guy they found? I heard from Twink. Is he infected?”
“Not getting samples from this one, Frankenteen.”
“I was not thinking that, you creep.”
“I’m starting to feel like a creep. Starting to feel like all I do is eat up the living.”
“That’s... what?” She pushed herself up and crossed her legs. “West, c’mon. Stop being mysterious. I’m your sister. It’s not hot for me.”
West chuckled half-heartedly. “We might be on the move, like you wanted.”
“Did the guy know of another place?”
“Not that he’s saying. They were at him... for awhile. Started up again... after I left him.” West’s eyes opened wider, grew strange. “He won’t tell us a thing. Not a damn thing.”
“So where are we going? My work-”
“It’s not going anywhere!” West glared at her. “And I don’t want you messing with those chemicals anyway.” He ruffled his hair. “The good ol’ boys are heading to Quebec. We’re staying here, until they’re ready.”
“Ready for what?”
“Nadir figured it out on the map. There are several paths marked, and she’s sure which ones we should check out. I don’t know why they don’t just leave the poor man alone... though we’d probably want to know about defenses... There’s a place up north that could support a town full of people,” West’s voice grew hoarse. “And he’s got the way to a port marked off. So. The boys are gonna see how good this place is that they’re hiding, and... Nadir’s gonna go see if the Arc they’ve got waiting to take them to the promised land is seaworthy.”
“I... I don’t understand.” Tea leaned over, watching West’s even features twisting.
“Tea, you’re not a kid anymore. What do you think those guys over in Quebec, hell, what do you think our guys are going to do if they find a town full of women and children? Especially women.”
Tea’s eyes went round. Her fingertips touched her lips. “Can’t we...” She dropped her hands into her lap. “Let’s go.”
“What?” West shot her a dark glance.
“Let’s go warn them.”
“Not a chance.”
“West!”
“No, Tea.”
“Look, West,” she spat. “There’s no reason we can’t-”
“I am not going to lose you!” West roared as he half turned on his side.
Tea jumped back. She watched him for a moment, her eyes darting back and forth, trying to read him.
“Sorry. I...”
“I liked you better before you were ‘West’. I think West is a stupid name.” She got up and jogged over to grab her boots.
“I liked me better before I was West,” West whispered hoarsely. “But we’re still not leaving the safety of the group.”
Tea stamped her foot. “Putang ina mo!!”
“Watch your mouth, brat.”
“You don’t even know what I said!”
“I know Mama would whip your ass for that!”
“Would have.” Tea crossed her arms over herself and collapsed against the wall.
“Rant and rave all you want,” West said. He sucked in his cheeks and scrutinized his cuticles. “You aren’t going anywhere. If anything happens to you, I’m blowing my fucking brains out.”
Tea choked and slammed her forehead against her knees. The room was silent for several minutes. Then she jumped up, flung herself on the bed, and pulled her brother closely to her.
Title: Meanwhile, Back at the Canadian Forces Base
Pair: Klaine
Word Count: 3882
Warning: suggestions of offscreen violence and racism
Summary: A group of survivors hiding out in a Canadian Forces Base takes stock of its lost members, finds a scout from another group, and begins to make plans.
AN: Because I needed MORE characters. Also… pretty much no canon characters in this part.
“There’s a good chance that Arizona isn’t coming back, West.”
“That’s okay.” West stood with his palms flat to the table. “He was always kind of was a mad, lecherous fuck.”
The two men stood in the ‘war room’ as they called it, despite the distinct lack of military at this base. The first an aging man with brown hair gone mostly white. The second, a tall, fair-skinned man with the fading affectations of one much accustomed to being given his way. His once-sleek, once too well-coiffed dark brown hair hung over his forehead; occasionally he brushed it out of his steely, blue eyes. Next to him stood his sister Tea, who was small and Asian, and had pulled her thick, curly hair into pigtails with sparkly hair bands that had purple ladybugs on them. She wore a tattered skirt with ripped stockings under her boots, and leaned forward onto the table, her critical brandy-colored eyes full of complex workings, as they counted off the scouts that had never come back.
West flipped a hand through his hair, looked down at the girl, and frowned. Fine, no one would miss Arizona. Especially not West, not after that ass had tried to get frisky with his little sister. He squeezed Tea’s shoulder, causing her to lean into him. But Tomcat and Delaware had been good fighters. They were down to seven people now, and it was getting harder to get in and out of the base. Their supplies were dwindling, in no small part because the base had been almost gutted when they’d settled in here. They were going to have to come up with a solution, and soon.
“There’s always the group in Quebec,” an older man with brown hair gone mostly white suggested.
West gave a bored look. “I’d rather have my face peeled off and eaten.”
The girl scrunched up her nose.
“Look, we’re gonna have to make some compromises, West. We need more people. More women anyway, if this is going to work.”
West rolled his eyes at the blatant and cliched drive towards repopulating the Earth. This was hardly Eden. “Not necessarily, Red. We can’t keep on our feet if we’re nursing a bunch of meat burritos. They’d be better used as bait.”
The girl’s eyes bulged, and she tugged on his sleeve.
He eyed her. “Sorry, Tea.”
“I just think we should look north again. Arizona thought there might be a settlement up there. It’s only been a few months since the outbreak hit Canada. It’s not crazy to think someone outsmarted the creeps.”
“How’s that outsmart them, sweetheart?” Red asked.
Red was such a dick around Tea. West couldn’t fault him for thinking she was younger than she was. The continued affectation for cute things, even in the face of utter disaster, didn’t help. West was used to thinking of her as a kid, since he was thirty-five, but she was twenty now, even if she looked twelve. More a woman than a girl. He thought sometimes that his sister went out of her way to let people talk down to her.
It had caused at least one jerk to forget how dangerous she could be, just long enough to keep them both alive.
Tea shrugged. “You noticed that the creepers gave us a break while the weather got cold. That’s because they froze. And not all of them thawed out, y’know, or they’d be thicker by now. You have to realize how much water is in the brain, in the entire human body. We’re basically water balloons. And once you destroy the brain, by bullet or by damaging enough of the tissue, they’re done.”
“Time for the creeper rave,” West muttered.
Tea’s lips curved. Her brother had been joking off and on about getting the creeps wasted for months, but then again, they tottered around like they were already stoned. He just liked to see her smile. She didn’t smile enough anymore. Not since their father had tried to kill her.
“I don’t think that’s such a bad idea, either, but we need the supplies to make it happen,” Tea reminded him. “Not a party. A gas that destroys the brain. I just need the right chemicals.”
She had been taking classes at Ohio State during her last year of delinquency at whatever residency high school their parents had dropped her off at when she’d gotten booted from the last one. West didn’t doubt she could do something, if she got the supplies and some help, but he had to wonder if that wouldn’t just finish them all off faster.
Red frowned at her. Tea smiled and twirled a pigtail around her finger.
“Gonna go check on the hostages.”
“Be careful!” West shouted after her.
She skipped away.
She was definitely playing up the little girl routine. West would have laughed, if it didn’t make him cringe and fret about the month she’d spent out of his company when they’d gotten separated. West hoped it gave her some protection. That was hard to come by, these days. And she was all he had left, after killing his father and abandoning his baby brother. Tea’s mother, his step-mother (but not the wicked kind), had gone to the fever, and they hadn’t had time to bury her before they left. Nor had they realized, at the time, she would be coming back.
It sort of haunted him to think of her still back home, rotting in her lavender nightgown, and snapping at whoever dared passed by their lovely, two story home in the suburbs. There was no way to put her to rest, now. And he saw the ghost of her, every time he looked at his little sister.
Tea lounged in the doorway, studying the figures chained to the wall. She often wondered what it would have been like, if this had happened five, ten years in the future. After she’d gotten some more experience in the labs. After she’d had her chance to be really wild, and really grow up a little.
She had some experience. She understood much about chemistry and the human body, no matter what the rest of the group thought of her glitterfemme gender performance. They should’ve seen her in the clubs. She could drop it, but then she wasn’t sure who she’d be. But experience she had just wasn’t enough. She could examine the brain tissue of the infected, if West would knock a head off for her to dissect in the lab. She knew what she was looking at. It was just so hard to put together what to do.
She’d given up on finding a cure. There had been one, and they had been treating people at the shelters and hospitals on the border. Or so the radio reports had said. She and her big brother hadn’t gotten there before the outbreak spread to Canada, and planes started swooping over all the big cities along the border and in the states, dropping down fiery death.
A creeper rose, swiping an attenuated arm at her as she jumped back swiftly. It growled, angrily, the flabby remnants of its lips curling back as it struggled against its chains. Hungry for her. She licked her own warm, living lips, skirted around the creeps and slipped into the lab.
She was so tired. And she missed... everyone. In her past life, she had been the fuck-up of the family. Smart, but always in trouble, one way or another. Her older brother did everything easy. He blazed out west and started to make a name for himself by the time she was really starting to make a mess. Her little brother had trouble focusing and he’d had a hard time at his former school, but he was a good kid. Popular. Talented as sin. Good at sports. Handsomer than was good for him.
It’s possible she missed him the most of all. She’d always been his biggest advocate in their family. He was so kindhearted. Maybe he was too good to stay in a world like this. But she loved them all. It was like a hole inside her, an open wound where they had been, and somehow she had to keep on without them. Even West... He was gone, more or less. He had been more of an egomaniac before. So proud of his talent, his charisma.
Tea reached into a drawer, then looked into a little mirror standing up on the table at the gaunt face, her once sun-kissed olive complexion gone sallow. Slowly, as though precision meant the world, she slid the purple hue thickly over her lips. After putting the tube away, she pulled on her gloves, donned the safety glasses, and went in to look at her specimens.
If she couldn’t heal, she could probably destroy.
West ran into the area surrounding the landing pad where the helicopter was coming down. Red and Twink were already there. Red had his hands on his hips as he looked up at the chopper, head cocked to the side.
“Oh, my god. Too ‘em long enough, huh?” Twink muttered. He crossed his arms and stepped back towards West. “I hope they’re all okay...”
West shook his head and waited. The boys had been gone a long time, but West was cautious. Unlike Twinkie Boy, the softy. Hence the codename. Unlike the others, Twink hadn’t chosen the name himself.
“Caught a stray, eh?” Red said, raising a white brow high.
West licked his lips narrowing his eyes cautiously as the door opened.
Tex and Oak pulled a middle-aged black man out with them. He was bound and gagged, which caused Twink to cover his mouth in upset. West strode forward.
“Where’s-?”
“Powerin’ the chopper down. We got some goods,” Oak said. He dropped their captive down in the dirt.
Tex looked down at him. “This fucker knows somethin’. We caught him blazin’ along the road in a car by hisself.”
“There were probably others once,” West said. More to work out things for himself than to get their opinions. Red was worth throwing something by, sometimes Twink if the kid wasn’t nervous, and rarely the pilot Nadir would give something useful, if it wasn’t too much trouble. Tex and Oak had named themselves well. Talking to them was like talking to a pair of busted bricks.
West circled around the man slowly.
“Could’ve been by himself,” Oak argued.
“He doesn’t look like a lone wolf. He looks like he belongs to someone.” West squatted down on his haunches and looked the man in his eyes. “Isn’t that right? Do you have a family somewhere? Getting supplies to take care of them? I understand that.”
“Didn’t have any supplies,” Tex added. “Just the car, a gun and bullets... water. Some maps.”
“Maps.” West looked between them. “If he didn’t have supplies, he’s on a different mission. Someone else is doing the foraging. He’s with a group, or a settlement, maybe. He could afford to only bring enough food for a few days.”
His eyes burned into them both. “Tell me you had the sense to take the maps.”
“I grabbed them,” Nadir said as she dropped out of the chopper, all long, powerful limbs and attitude.
West met the their captive’s eye, then reached toward him. When the man jerked backward, West held up his hands and gave him a dashing grin. “No need for that. Tex and Oak are the muscle. I’m sure every group’s got a pair of them. We hate the bastards, but we need them to keep our loved ones safe.”
Nadir snorted, took a swig of water, and headed away from the group at a good clip. “I’m gonna go grab shower. Don’t bother me.”
West reached for the man’s gag again and untied it. “There,” he said gently. “Better? Now, if we untie you, are you going to cooperate, play nice?”
“Funny you talkin’ about playing nice, what with all your boys were callin’ me as they kicked my black ass,” the man said wryly. “‘Tex had some fun words I hadn’t heard since crossin’ over the border here. Words I’d hoped we’d left at the end of the world.”
“I am sorry about that. Do you need any medical care? Our nurse got killed a few weeks back, but my little sister knows a think or two. She might be able to help.” West made eye contact. That showed people that you were sincere.
“I might make it. But if you think I’m gonna tell you where those maps lead, you’re in for something else.”
West rubbed his palm over his mouth. “They call me West. What do you go by?”
“Forest,” he replied, completely nonplussed by the people around him.
“Oh, yeah? Oak, he’s a bigger man than you. You’re one tree. He’s a whole damn forest.” West grinned.
“I’m not so interested in making friends just now,” Forest said. “If you don’t mind.”
“Look, we’re all out here trying to survive the best we can. Maybe our groups can help each other,” West said. Then, to emphasize, he pointed. “I know that we can make it through this, if people can only stick together. C’mon. I’ll untie you, and we can talk diplomacy between our group and yours.”
“Who said I had a group?”
West pressed his lips together.
“You’re a pretty enough boy, but you don’t fool me.” Forest eyed him. “Somethin’s off here, and you think I’m gonna take one look at your pretty white-boy smile and roll over? Nothin’ happenin’, kid. I’m too old and too goddamn stubborn to let your fool acting lead me and mind down the road to hell again.”
“I’m not acting.”
“You sure ain’t being straight with me, either.” Forest shook his head. “Whatever you folks want, you’re ain’t gettin’ it. You read me, pretty boy?”
West straightened up and looked away for a moment. “Look, Forest. I don’t know what you think we’re going to do-”
“I know what those two are gonna do.” Forest jerked his head back in Tex and Oak’s direction. “I know what they want. They been gossipin’ on it the whole damn way. And it’s not happening! You cain’t get me to tell you where my “group” is, if I got a group, how many, what kinda weapons, nothin’! I ain’t telling. You try me. I’d rather die. I’d rather die than unleash men like them on anybody.”
“Hate to break it to ya, but we can probably figure this one out on our own,” Red said.
“Who needs to?” Oak said. “We’ll get it outta him.”
“No,” West ordered.
His eyes widened as the two big men, one from the South and one from somewhere in Newfoundland, grabbed Forest and dragged him off, with Red following. West had grown accustomed to the group listening to him, usually without question.
His stomach felt like it had dropped to the ground.
“Are they gonna...?” Twink’s voice was small and young as he was.
“Dunno.” West touched his fist to his lips and narrowed his eyes. “Dunno.”
Forest had been away from his own too long, but not so long that he didn’t appreciate the stark difference between his folks and theirs. It was palpable, the disease here. The air was thick with it.
There were scraps of humanity to be had in this place, but they were so faded, so nearly lost. Some flickered in the eyes of the manchild who had tried to reason with him. Some in that boy shaking behind the men. But in the men who had beat him, in the older man, and in that tall hellion of a pilot, it was gone. They were practically walkers.
He’d seen it before, in Blaine. Such a sweet boy now, he’d been almost lost when Forest had met him. So maybe they could be saved. But that wasn’t his priority. That would be getting home to his baby girl. He couldn’t leave her like this, just disappear out of her life. She was still a child, no matter how brave she was, and she needed her daddy.
The pilot strode in with West on her heels, arguing impotently with her. She dropped down to his level, gripped his chin in her long fingers, and pulled his face forward.
“Little sister was right, huh? You got a colony up north. Food? Ammo? All that shit?”
She asked, but it wasn’t really a question. She had the maps in one hand. Her lips curved to one side.
“You lead us? An’ we’ll let ya live. Otherwise, you’re creep bait. The last thing I need here is another horny asshole.”
West frowned at her cold words. The woman pushed Forest back, and he took a breath.
“Now I’m not interested in hurtin’ you, hon. How could I?”
“I’m not your ‘hon.’ Where the fuck are you from?”
“I’m guessin’ you’re from Jersey,” he replied. He noted the surprise register on her features. “The accent. I’m from Georgia.”
“Then why do they call you ‘Forest’?” She crossed her arms and tilted her head slightly.
“S’my name,” he answered with a shrug.
She frowned, seeming confused. “You gave us your name. Your real name? Why the hell would’ja do that?”
“Like you could track down where I used to live? What difference does it make?”
“All the difference.” She stepped closer to him and pointed. “You have until morning before I chain you up and dangle you from my chopper to lead off the creeps from our front gate. You’re either with us or against us.”
West watched her with wide eyes as she stormed out.
“She’s a sweetheart,” Forest said. He leaned back and closed his eyes. The blood was pounding through his head.
“She’ll do it. Forest, you have to tell them-”
“You think I ain’t had good cop/bad cop played on me?”
“That’s not what this is.”
Forest looked up at West again. His pretty boy hair was a mess.
“You’ll die,” West said breathlessly. He sounded genuine, this time. Sympathetic, and scared.
“This is worth dyin’ for. My life isn’t worth hers.”
West came at him aggressively, then stopped just short of Forest. His eyes, bright sky blue, burned with anger. Then all the fight went out of him, and he just shook his head and strolled out of the room.
“You’re right.”
Forest drew in a deep breath and blinked, slowly. He had to keep his wits about him. If there was any chance of escaping from these broken fools, he had to try.
When West came to Tea’s bedroom that night, he looked old. Like someone had come and sucked some years off of him. She was laying on her stomach, reading, and he flopped down next to her, rubbing his temple.
“What’s the matter, old man?”
“Shuddap.”
Tea faked a sniffle. West didn’t laugh. He just sighed, heavily, and looked up at the ceiling.
“Seriously.” Tea closed her book. “What happened? Is it about the guy they found? I heard from Twink. Is he infected?”
“Not getting samples from this one, Frankenteen.”
“I was not thinking that, you creep.”
“I’m starting to feel like a creep. Starting to feel like all I do is eat up the living.”
“That’s... what?” She pushed herself up and crossed her legs. “West, c’mon. Stop being mysterious. I’m your sister. It’s not hot for me.”
West chuckled half-heartedly. “We might be on the move, like you wanted.”
“Did the guy know of another place?”
“Not that he’s saying. They were at him... for awhile. Started up again... after I left him.” West’s eyes opened wider, grew strange. “He won’t tell us a thing. Not a damn thing.”
“So where are we going? My work-”
“It’s not going anywhere!” West glared at her. “And I don’t want you messing with those chemicals anyway.” He ruffled his hair. “The good ol’ boys are heading to Quebec. We’re staying here, until they’re ready.”
“Ready for what?”
“Nadir figured it out on the map. There are several paths marked, and she’s sure which ones we should check out. I don’t know why they don’t just leave the poor man alone... though we’d probably want to know about defenses... There’s a place up north that could support a town full of people,” West’s voice grew hoarse. “And he’s got the way to a port marked off. So. The boys are gonna see how good this place is that they’re hiding, and... Nadir’s gonna go see if the Arc they’ve got waiting to take them to the promised land is seaworthy.”
“I... I don’t understand.” Tea leaned over, watching West’s even features twisting.
“Tea, you’re not a kid anymore. What do you think those guys over in Quebec, hell, what do you think our guys are going to do if they find a town full of women and children? Especially women.”
Tea’s eyes went round. Her fingertips touched her lips. “Can’t we...” She dropped her hands into her lap. “Let’s go.”
“What?” West shot her a dark glance.
“Let’s go warn them.”
“Not a chance.”
“West!”
“No, Tea.”
“Look, West,” she spat. “There’s no reason we can’t-”
“I am not going to lose you!” West roared as he half turned on his side.
Tea jumped back. She watched him for a moment, her eyes darting back and forth, trying to read him.
“Sorry. I...”
“I liked you better before you were ‘West’. I think West is a stupid name.” She got up and jogged over to grab her boots.
“I liked me better before I was West,” West whispered hoarsely. “But we’re still not leaving the safety of the group.”
Tea stamped her foot. “Putang ina mo!!”
“Watch your mouth, brat.”
“You don’t even know what I said!”
“I know Mama would whip your ass for that!”
“Would have.” Tea crossed her arms over herself and collapsed against the wall.
“Rant and rave all you want,” West said. He sucked in his cheeks and scrutinized his cuticles. “You aren’t going anywhere. If anything happens to you, I’m blowing my fucking brains out.”
Tea choked and slammed her forehead against her knees. The room was silent for several minutes. Then she jumped up, flung herself on the bed, and pulled her brother closely to her.
