Little White Lie
By Althea M
"You got a girlfriend I don't know about?"
I was already embarrassed just having to go into the pharmacy to pick up, among other things, some female product that was so hush-hush. I liked the idea of going into town with Maggie; that was no problem at all, once I got past having to ride a horse. But I figured being able to spend any time at all with that 'farmer's daughter' would be a plus. She seemed to only be tolerating me, but I think I would grow on her, over time.
Once at the pharmacy, Maggie went back to the medical supply section to pick out some things her dad might need, what with Carl being shot, I didn't even really know what I was looking for. Lori had written a brand name on a separate piece of paper and directed me to the feminine products isle. I'd picked up things for my sisters, when they were desperate; pads, tampons, when they were willing to pay me, so I kind of thought I knew what I might find there.
But when I found the box with the brand name I was looking for and read it, I just thought, 'Oh, no'. I just knew that was not good. I was thinking so hard on the situation back at the farm that I didn't hear Maggie approach until she spoke from behind me.
"What'cha got there?"
I had just enough time to stuff the small box into my satchel. In an effort to cover that I'd just tucked something away that I didn't want to share, I blindly grabbed another box. I stood up tossing it between my hands without even looking at it.
"Just some general stuff", I said, trying to sound like a man in charge of a situation.
"Condoms", she said. It wasn't a question. And that's when I looked at the box in my hands. A twelve pack. I could have fallen through the floor.
Maggie looked at me skeptically, "You got a girlfriend I don't know about?"
"Wha-ah-nuh", I stammered.
In that brief instant, my mind snapped back to the quarry.
From the RV door I watched the two women chatting by the cook fire. Being one of the other 'odd men out' Dale took a kind of pity on me and let me hang around the RV. He wasn't slick; he'd been showing me different maintenance aspects of the RV from the first day we got together. I didn't mind, though, it was good stuff to know, and because it let me get close to the two women chatting by the fire. They weren't related to him, they were stranded, just like the rest of us, and in a very fatherly way, he opened his home on wheels to them.
I had a tent nearby, inside the perimeter, where I slept, if you could call it sleeping. I'm a 'city boy'; car horns, sirens, dogs barking, that was my lullaby. In this place, listening to crickets, the rustling of leaves, and wondering if that was a snapping twig that I really needed to worry about, kept me awake until I just couldn't keep my eyes open.
They were sisters, the older one was Andrea. She was a lawyer, I heard, some type of civil rights or public interest something or other. She acted pleasant enough, but she had a hardness about her, calculating, cautious, like she was looking for an angle to your approach.
Amy was just the opposite of her sister. Amy was warm and inviting, open and friendly. She had been just getting ready to go to college, first semester. She still had the sweetest smile and we had actually shared a conversation for longer than, 'Pass the peas, please' a few times, sitting on the steps of Dale's RV. I don't know about her, but I didn't want Andrea to find me in the RV alone with Amy, even if all we were doing was talking. It would get ugly real quick and there appeared to be only one real exit.
One day, early on, Amy asked me, "Why do you always go on the run?"
"We need stuff." I responded. "We have people that need to be fed."
"I understand that, but, why always you?" She persisted.
"Well, I go because I want to be useful. We need food, supplies…"
She considered this. "But there's no one to help you bring back those supplies."
"Honestly" I said, "I don't want to be responsible for anyone else going in with me. I can move fast, in and out. Sure, I'm limited in what I can carry, but I don't have to worry about anyone else but me getting out alive. I prefer it."
Amy had nodded, considering what I'd said. Then, "I worry about you when you go." Wow! I thought my heart was going to burst. I almost couldn't think of anything to say. "I-I-I'll be careful."
My aunt once told me 'be careful not to call the Devil's name because he will come'. I didn't really know what she meant at the time. But I knew what it meant when Shane came rolling up on me later that day, thumbs hooked in his belt, "Glenn!" I tried not to cringe, but that dude made me nervous. He was very intense and he made me feel like I was going to be cuffed and stuffed and I'd never, ever been in trouble with the law.
"Yeah, Shane?" I had to resist saying, 'Yes, Officer.'
"I've been thinking that, you do a good job bringing back supplies and all, and you seem to know how to get in and out, but, more stuff could be brought back if you had a couple of people with you."
I shook my head, but he just wasn't seeing it. I'd called the devil's name.
"So, I want you to take a couple of other folks with you…"
'!?'
"…on your next run. They may also spot something that we need that you may have missed."
Well there it was; a compliment and a kick in the pants at the same time. I was doing a great job but I might be missing something. Taking these extra people was not a good plan, in my opinion.
"Just make a list, I'll look for it."
"No, I think it will be better this way."
"I don't think so." And that's when the switch was flipped. Shane stepped and leaned into me and it took everything I had not to back away, "Well that's the plan. You can either lead the mission or be just a team member." He peered at me for a couple more heartbeats. Normal heart beats, certainly not mine at the moment. Then he turned away, saying over his shoulder, "Let them know when you plan to leave tomorrow morning."
I let out a breath I had not realized I'd been holding. With my hands on my hips, I stared at the ground and shook my head. The sun was setting, someone was doing the communal cooking, but I'd lost my appetite.
I was sitting on a log conveniently located outside of my tent, thinking about where I could take this group the next day that might make it all worthwhile, when a shadow fell over me. I jumped up and whirled around and found myself looking into the startled eyes of Amy. When my breathing settled down, and hers too, I noticed she was holding a plate and spoon in her hands.
"You didn't come down for dinner, so I thought…" she trailed off.
"Uh, yeah, I, uh, I got a task and it kinda threw me off my feed."
She ignored my statement and extended the food to me, which I took, almost by reflex. I mumbled a 'thank you'. I sighed and sat down, indicating she should join me, which, pleasantly, she did.
Seeing that I wasn't immediately tucking into the food, she asked me, "What's wrong?"
I shook my head. "Shane has decided I need to take a group with me to maybe bring back a bigger haul."
"You said you didn't want to do that" as though reminding me.
"Yeah, but it's Shane." Amy nodded. She understood where I was coming from. We had Ed in the group. He was a douche bag, and although he was trying to keep it on the down-low, his wife and daughter were always nervous around him. It was suspected that he might be an abuser, but he was keeping it in his tent, for now. Shane was only a couple of steps above Ed, in my opinion.
"You couldn't get him to change his mind?" she asked as she bent forward to try to peer into my downturned face. I cast my gaze on her and was once again taken by her smooth complexion, her golden hair, and her warm, brown eyes. She probably thought I was weak.
"The man doesn't like opposition. He's trying not to treat us all like 'perps'." Amy laughed lightly at that.
"I truly understand what you're saying. If it weren't for how close he stays to Lori, I'd say he and my sister would make a dangerous team." That got a couple of good chuckles out of me. We chatted about stuff while I ate and after I'd finished, but just as the sun officially set, Andrea showed up to claim her.
The next morning, after breakfast of beans and…beans, I collected the lists of things people made that they really wanted to have, if I ran across it. It really wasn't much different from previous lists. We were a rather small group so the list was short but it was always a constant; canned food, soap, medical supplies, shampoo, deo, toothpaste, and other replacement stuff.
The group that was going with me was standing around the van T-Dog had escaped from Atlanta in. He offered it up for this run. We had too many people for the little Smart car we'd found abandoned on the road. Gonzales and T-Dog were both fidgeting but looking far more confident than Andrea or Jacqui. I walked up, putting my hand on the passenger side door while T-Dog climbed in and fired it up. As we began to roll, our resident and very vocal, bigoted, racist, possible doper redneck blocked our exit. He was holding a big rifle.
"Hole up there, now!" he growled.
I leaned out the passenger side window, "What is it?"
"I thought I'd offer my services, not that anybody asked me." Merle smirked. "Kinda makes me feel unwelcome."
I tried to dissuade him, "We have more than enough people on this trip, Merle".
At that point he called me his usual disparaging names and implied that, just in case we ran into another group it might be better if they were addressed by him, rather than… and there went that mouth again referencing T-Dog, Gonzalez and myself, and topping it off with his low, misogynistic opinion of women.
When Shane came over, I thought we were going to get a break.
"Take him with you, you might need fire power." And with that, he stepped back, waited for Merle to climb in, and waved us off. Great.
It didn't get any better. In fact, it turned into a complete cluster. I thought I was going to die. The highlight of the day, for all of its weirdness, was when I saw the cowboy ride into town. After his rescue, and some intensely weird efforts, we got back to camp. In addition, we return with virtually nothing I could not have brought back on my own. Added to that, we left Merle, who had gone completely nuts, cuffed to a pipe on the roof. I feel bad that part of me didn't feel bad about that.
The 'cowboy' it turned out was Lori's husband and Carl's dad. There was a grand reunion. Can't help but remember Shane's expression when he saw him; like he'd seen a ghost.
We didn't even rest for the night; the decision was made to go back to retrieve…the guns. The cowboy, Rick, wanted to go back to rescue Merle. Shane at first wanted to veto the idea, with talk of loss of manpower there at camp. But Rick told him about the bag of guns and ammo he'd dropped and Shane reluctantly changed his mind.
Before we loaded up, Amy approached me and offered me a granola bar she had. I tried to refuse but, "Take it," she said, "you'll need the energy more than I will." I just held it, so she took it from me, opened it and handed it back. "Eat it", she said firmly but with a twinkle in her eye. So I took a bite. It's hard to chew, keeping your mouth closed like your mother taught you, when you're smiling like a dope. Then she gave me that radiant smile and said, "Come back safe, okay?" Still chewing, I looked at her more seriously and nodded consent.
I didn't know that would be the last time I would ever speak with her.
We were taking the truck that we had come back in with Rick, since the van had been left behind. Rick was driving and Merle's brother, Daryl, who had nearly lost his mind when he heard what had happened to Merle, was in the front with him. I was in the back with T-Dog.
We got back to the roof. The chain and lock on the door leading to the roof was still secured; T-Dog had had faith in that. But when we got up there, in a dramatically mind-blowing, or drug induced, escape maneuver, Merle had cut off his own right hand to get out of the cuffs. I guess he didn't think he was safe.
We followed a blood trail, but didn't find him. We got the guns. We lost the guns. I got kidnapped. I was rescued. We met some worthwhile people; gave them some of the guns. And then found that our transport had been stolen. We had to hoof it back to the quarry. We felt a need for speed because we couldn't be sure that Merle hadn't been the one to take the truck and was headed back to camp for some kind of payback. Daryl didn't deny the possibility.
It was dark as we jogged up the final hill leading to our camp when we heard the first of several shots. Then we broke into a full on run. Rick had given each of us one of the weapons, fully loaded. He gave me a shotgun and showed me what I needed to know to use it. Thank God for that, because when we crested the hill into camp it was chaos. Geeks, 'walkers', whatever you wanted to call them, had attacked the camp. I started shooting anything that didn't look 'human' anymore.
Finally, it was quiet. There were about a dozen of those things laid out on the ground. But we lost some people, too. And then I saw her. Andrea was crouched on the ground beside a bloodied person who was still moving feebly. They were dying. For some reason, my brain didn't immediately connect Andrea with the person she was grieving over.
Amy.
'No, not Amy!' my mind yelled.
I, like several others, could only stand back and watch as Andrea held vigil with her sister's body after she passed. Rick, employing his 'Officer Friendly' routine, tried to reason with her only to find that sewer pipe of a pistol in his nose. No one approached her again.
And when Amy…reanimated, Andrea lovingly put a bullet through Amy's brain. And I don't even mean to compare my loss to Andrea's but, when that shot was fired, I felt such emptiness inside me, it's hard to describe.
"You got a girlfriend I don't know about?" Maggie's voice lilted upwards in a tone of disbelief.
"Wha-ah-nuh- no". Yes, I'd had a girlfriend. Well, it had had potential as such, even if such words were never spoken. But she was gone now.
"I'll have sex with you." It was stated as though it really wasn't up to me.
And so, I let her take my body and use it to satisfy her need and my own. She was rough and she wanted to be mean, but I put forth my best effort there on the pharmacy floor.
I worked hard to use the next eleven condoms to gain her heart. It wasn't a real plan, but I made it my plan. I fell in love with that farmer's daughter. And I had even had an opportunity to risk my life to save hers. And by the time that box was empty, she'd become mine.
And not telling her about Amy wasn't a lie, not really. Maybe, after we've been together for a while, I'll tell her the story of how I met Rick and who all were at the quarry and the things that happened there and after we left.
And I'll tell her about Amy and how I had felt about her.
Until then, I'll just focus on her. She's not Amy. She's Maggie. Maggie is here, she's real, she is mine, and I am hers.
END