Slow Burn (Book 5): Torrent Read online

  Murphy laughed. “Regular folks like us?”

  “You know what I mean. They get the dumb ones to do their dirty work. They get to have a meal of fresh meat and don’t have to put themselves in too much danger.”

  “Be honest with yourself, man. We don’t know. We just don’t know. That’s why you keep changing what you say is going on with them.”

  “I’m learning, and based on what I learn, I update my theory of their behavior.”

  “That sounds like a fancy way of saying you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

  Chapter 12

  Because we’d motored past the riverboat under the anxious eyes of all of our old and hopefully new friends, giving them a casual wave, they knew Murphy and I were safe. Perhaps not as important as our safety, but significant, was that they’d seen the boatload of crates, as well as our sleeping passenger. After going what seemed like a long enough distance up river, we cut the engine and drifted the silent miles back.

  When we arrived, the rain was turning from a drizzle to a thick fog. Murphy tossed a rope over to Dalhover, who caught it and hauled us alongside. With our bow tied off, our stern drifted around in the current and swung up beside the big tourist boat. I jumped onto the boat’s deck and tied it off.

  Nico slept.

  Murphy climbed onto the riverboat and into Mandi’s waiting arms.

  Steph and Dalhover were in front of me when I stood up after tying off the stern. Emotional and physical exhaustion were weighing on me and I let my guard down. For the moment, I was safe. I was home, at our new home, if all had gone well between Amy, Steph and the others. I found a smile for Steph and pointed to the crates of munitions on the pontoon boat’s deck. “We got a lot more than we planned.”

  Steph put a hand to her forehead, reminding me of my gash. “What happened?”

  My fingers came back with some blood on them. I guessed I looked terrible. “It’s not as bad as it looks. Maybe you can patch me up later.”

  Steph took her worried eyes off of my wound, pointed to Nico and tersely asked, “Who’s that?”

  Unprepared for anything but congratulations or possibly a hug, I was miffed. “Nico. He’s the guy I told you about. The one I escaped from the chain gang with.”

  “What’s wrong with him?”

  “Worn out.” Was I being interrogated? “I don’t think he’s slept since the last time I saw him.”

  “You said you left him with an old man.”

  I looked at Dalhover, silently asking why Steph was in a bad mood. Dalhover conveyed nothing. What a surprise. “Mr. Mays. His name was Mr. Mays.”

  “Yes, where’s he?”

  “Dead.” Sure, I used the word “dead,” but I made it sound as much like “fuck you” as possible.

  Dalhover chose that moment to defuse the tension. “Can’t wait to hear how you guys got all of this.” He jumped down to the pontoon boat’s deck and started to examine the wooden boxes.

  “You can’t just bring in any stray you come across,” Steph said.

  “But…”

  “You know how Freitag worked out.”

  And that silenced me.

  I looked down into the pontoon boat as I thought about it. Sure, I’d let Freitag and her companions into Sarah Mansfield’s compound. But what else could I have done? I’d ruminated on that mess so many times, searching my memories for clues that could have showed me how badly it would all turn out. I’d told myself a thousand times that if I had been patient, Steph and the group would have come to the same decision. But I didn’t wait. I was so certain at the time that I was doing the right thing. I was decisive. And because of that decisiveness, I bore the responsibility.

  Life’s not fair.

  I don’t know if Steph saw my clenched jaw and my combative stance, or whether she just came to the end of her own anger. Whichever it was, her tone softened. “Zed, we need to talk about these kinds of things first. Okay?”

  One moment she was Captain Leonard and the next she was just redheaded Steph. She could switch modes faster than I could keep up. I glanced back at her to acknowledge she spoke. I wanted to turn away, to immaturely express my unhappiness with her hard words. But it was difficult. I was in the neighborhood of infatuation, at least when I wasn’t grating against her authority. I motioned toward Nico. “He’s an okay guy.”

  “I thought you said he was a coward.”

  “I probably said ‘pussy.’”

  Steph rolled her eyes. “Is he a liability for us? I don’t think you’re capable of seeing people in that way, Zed. I’ll bet you fed every stray cat in the neighborhood.”

  “I never had a pet.”

  Steph brushed past that. “Please, don’t take this the wrong way, but we need to be pragmatic, harsh if necessary, when we make these kinds of decisions. I know you won’t understand what I’m about to tell you, but we can’t risk our lives unnecessarily.”

  I smiled. “That was almost a joke, wasn’t it? You were trying to make nice-nice by being funny. You do have a sense of humor. Well, almost.”

  “I can be funny under the right circumstances.”

  “I’m sure.” I looked over at Dalhover, who was examining the crates.

  “You know everything is different now.” Steph chose to continue with her lesson. Captain Leonard mode again. “You want to do the right thing, Zed. You’re a good person. But that’ll get all of us in trouble if you don’t think about the consequences.”

  I nodded, just because I’d already decided I was probably going to do whatever it was I was going to do. And the sooner she stopped lecturing me about doing what she thought I should do the better.

  She put a hand on my shoulder to urge me to turn around and give her my attention. “These are hard choices to make. Let me make them, okay? We can talk about it, if you want. But you guys put me in charge for a reason,” she said. “I can make the hard decisions when it’s necessary.”

  I glanced at Nico. I was back in the conversation. “You want me to tell him to hit the road?” I sounded as though I was pleading.

  “Listen, I’m not saying that. Let us talk to him when he wakes up and we’ll all decide. Okay? If he needs to go, I’ll tell him. I’ll do the dirty work. Okay?”

  “We’ll just send him back out into the world? Alone?”

  “He was alone when you found him, right? He won’t be any worse off if he needs to be alone again. If anything, he’ll be better off. We can probably give him some food. And it looks like you’ve got enough ammo and weapons for a whole company. I’m sure we can spare some.”

  I shook my head. I’d been through all of this with Nico already. I’d already made the choice once not to bring him back and I’d left him with Mr. Mays. And Nico had paid the price. He was at the edge of his wits and it was my fault. I was ready to make up for that by letting him join us. “I don’t feel good about this.”

  Steph put her hand on my other shoulder and looked into my eyes. “That’s why you have to let me decide. Well, me and Amy.”

  “You and Amy?”

  “We’ve talked. They’re letting us stay.”

  “That’s good.” I felt one of my worries slip away. “I think this is the safest place for us right now, and they seem like good folks.”

  “We all agreed I’m still in charge. But Amy needs to have a say in whether we bring anybody else on board.”

  “Okay. Just give Nico some time to decompress. He was trapped in the house with Mr. Mays when we found him. The infected broke in and killed Mr. Mays. Nico’s in pretty bad shape.”

  “Trust me. We’re not monsters, Zed. You know that, don’t you?” Steph waited for an answer.

  “Of course.”

  “We want to do the right thing, too. We just need to make sure we’re all protected first. We have to come first. That’s just the way the world is now. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Chapter 13

  For such a large boat, there really wasn’t much to it. Above the
water line it was a big, square-ish thing with two white decks painted with red trim. The lower deck was a rectangular space, open on all sides except the stern. On both the port and starboard sides, a structure was built to look like housing for a paddlewheel. They were purely cosmetic. In the stern, on the main deck, was a kitchen large enough to cater a hundred meals. In the superstructure above the kitchen, on the second deck, was the pilothouse.

  Stretched out in front of the pilothouse was another open deck. In the evenings, as the boat cruised up and down the river, the sunset tourists would stand under clear Texas skies, watching them change from blue to orange and red while they sipped alcohol and pretended they were in love.

  Restrooms were below deck, along with the engine room.

  Outside of tables, chairs and benches, nothing was on the decks. Before we arrived, Amy, Megan and Brittany had put the pilothouse to use as their sleeping quarters. The rest of us set up to sleep on the lower deck on seat cushions removed from the other boats. That’s also where Steph chose to hold our first communal meeting, between the faux paddlewheel housings, to keep us somewhat hidden from curious eyes on the banks.

  Amy, Megan and Brittany, the original tenants of the riverboat, were there, of course. Dalhover, Mandi and Steph rounded out the six normals. Murphy, Nico, Russell and I made up the infected four. We sat in a rough semi-circle around Steph who was standing, in charge.

  Steph started the meeting. “First off, thank you, Amy, Megan and Brittany for letting us stay on your boat.”

  Several of us added our thanks.

  “We’ve all agreed I’ll be in charge,” she said. “Sergeant Dalhover will be my second in command. I’ll consult with Amy on major decisions and we can all talk about them whenever we get together like this.”

  “Will this be a regular thing?” Mandi asked.

  Steph nodded. “The first thing we need to talk about is whether to bring anyone else into the group.” Steph looked straight at me. “Amy and I have talked about it and we’re reluctant, but will consider people on a case-by-case basis. That’s the plan going forward.”

  Nico jumped to his feet, looking plenty normal after having spent the afternoon napping. “Th…thank you all for tak…ing me in. W…words can’t express how g…grateful I am. I j…just want you all to kn…n…now that I’ll d…d…do my best to p…pull my weight.” Frustrated with his new stutter, Nico took a deep breath before finishing. Speaking in slow clear words, he said, “You won’t regret it.”

  “Nico,” Steph said, “as we discussed earlier, you can stay for now. We’ll see how things work out, and in a couple of days, we’ll decide if you can stay permanently.”

  “I…” Nico seemed overcome with gratitude or frustration. He slowly sat back down in his chair and muttered. “…won’t l…let you down.”

  Did he say, “Won’t I?” Nico’s speech problem was more than just a stutter.

  “I’ve posted a duty roster outside the door to the kitchen,” Steph said. “Please don’t see this as tyrannical. If our goal is to thrive and not just survive, we need to work together. That means we all have to share in the duties nobody wants, like standing night watch, washing dishes and cleaning latrines.” Steph was nothing if not anal retentive about organization.

  Nods of agreement.

  “I don’t have Russell on the duty roster for obvious reasons. He seems glued to Mandi for the time being, and appears more than willing to copy whatever she’s doing. I’ll try and take advantage of that as I assign her duties, so Russell can earn his keep along with the rest of us. Zed, Murphy and Nico won’t be assigned guard duty.” Steph looked around at all of us to gauge our acceptance of this. “They’ll be going out to collect food and whatever else we need. They’ll have plenty of dangerous, strenuous work without also having to stand guard at night. Does that sound fair?”

  Mostly nods, but Nico jumped back to his feet again, shaking his head emphatically. “N…no, P…please. I can’t.” He pointed at the shore and tears gathered in his eyes. “P…p…please. I c…can stand guard.”

  I wondered if he was shy in front of crowds. He was having a really hard time with his stutter.

  “You have to pull your weight if you want to stay,” Steph said.

  Murphy’s big voice boomed. “Man, he’s a pussy.” He looked over at Nico. “No offense, man. I’m just sayin’. I don’t want him putting me and Zed in danger if he’s out there doing stupid shit because he’s afraid. Me and Zed’ll handle it.”

  “Zed, what do you think?” Steph said.

  I looked at Nico, who was slumping in his chair, ashamed. “Nico, can you drive the boat?” I asked. “I’d feel better if we could leave someone in the boat, rather than leaving it alone when we’re on shore.”

  With attention focused on his feet, Nico shrugged.

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  “C…can I have a few days first? I…I need time.”

  “Time?” I asked. “For what?”

  Nico looked up. Tears were running down his cheeks. “I…can’t go back out there again. Not yet. P…please.”

  I turned to Steph. She was the boss. She could make the call.

  “You can have a few days,” she said. “You need to understand we’ve all been through a lot, Nico. We all need to find a way to keep moving forward. You, too. You understand?”

  Nico nodded. He’d hit the limit of what his brain could process. He was broken. I felt bad for him.

  But Mandi wasn’t satisfied with what she saw. “If Murphy and Zed can go out there and risk their lives, then so can you, Nico.”

  It was out of character for her. And it took us all by surprise.

  With everyone looking at her, she got embarrassed. “What?”

  “Let’s move on,” Steph said. “Zed, Murphy, thank you for going out this morning and getting those weapons and all of that ammunition. I know it turned out to be a lot more dangerous than we thought it would be.”

  “That’s just how Murphy and the Null Spot roll, man,” Murphy said.

  Steph giggled. “I almost forgot about Null Spot.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Can’t we all just forget about that Null Spot business?”

  Steph gave me a smile and changed the subject. “Amy and I put together a shopping list.”

  “A shopping list?” Murphy laughed.

  “It’s a list of things we need. Not really a shopping list,” Amy said.

  “That’s all right. I gotcha.” Murphy grinned.

  “We have enough food for maybe a couple more days, if we eat light.” Steph said. “But we could run out of propane at any time. Since most of the stuff we have is canned or boxed, propane isn’t a necessity, but if we catch any fish, we’ll need to cook them.”

  “Most of these houses have grills on the patios,” I said. “We can start swiping the tanks when we stop by to raid the pantries. And while we’re on the subject of food, I think Murphy and I might be able to go back down to that country club where we parked the boat this morning. I think there’s a restaurant in there. We may be able to stock up with bulk supplies.”

  “That’s a great idea.” Steph grew excited. “There’s got to be at least a dozen restaurants right on the water up and down this section of the river.”

  “We could hit them all,” I said. “But we’re going to need more gas for the boat. We’ll have to scrounge up some of that, too. The marinas probably have some. We’ll need to work out something to pump it out with, though.”

  “I’ll take care of that,” Dalhover said. “There’s a hand pump down in the engine room. That and ten feet of hose should be all you need.”

  “We can always use a garden hose,” Murphy said. “Plenty of those lying around in peoples’ yards.”

  “Speaking of boats,” Steph said, “we need to make a plan for ours.”

  “What do you mean?” Amy asked.

  “We have five boats at the moment.”

  “Six.” Murphy grinned.

  “S
ix?”

  Murphy looked down at the deck.

  Steph rolled her eyes. “Yes, six. But we have five small boats. Amy, where do you keep the keys for the boats?”

  Amy reached into the pocket of her pants. “I’ve got them.”

  “I think it would be best if we distribute the keys among the ten of us. Excluding Russell, because… Well, for obvious reasons. And Nico is provisional. That leaves eight people and five keys. I think if we ever find ourselves in a position where we need to get out of here in a hurry, we may not want to have all of our eggs in one basket.”

  “In case I get killed,” Amy said.

  Sergeant Dalhover spoke up. “We should leave the keys on the boats.”

  Steph shook her head. “I don’t want to leave the keys dangling in the ignition switches. We all know how unscrupulous people can be. We don’t want anyone swimming up in the dark and running off with our boats.”

  “We hide them on the boats,” Sergeant Dalhover said. “We can all do it together so everybody knows where the keys are.”

  “And Nico?” Amy asked.

  “If he doesn’t work out, he can’t steal more than one,” Steph said. “Everybody good with that? No offense, Nico.”

  Nico stared at the floor and didn’t respond. The rest of us nodded.

  Steph started talking about water consumption and conservation. That transitioned into a conversation about long-term food plans. I should have been interested in all of it. I’d been passionate about the subject since practically the first moment I realized the whole world was falling apart. But I was bored.

  I was fidgety.

  I wanted to move my feet.

  I squirmed in my seat.

  A debate about something or other went on and on and I found myself staring at Russell who, as it turned out, was also staring. I followed his gaze to Nico, who was also staring. At that point, it became a game. The angle between me and Nico wasn’t optimal for figuring out exactly what his gaze had settled on, but my guess was Megan.