Notes: ...oops. I have no explanation for why this chapter took over a year to escape the editing/rewriting hell-cycle it found itself trapped in, only apologies.
7. Dead Wake
Shel's right ear was still ringing faintly, a low hum that preyed on her nerves. She rubbed it with her thumb as she left the infirmary, a loose bundle of bed sheets clutched in her other hand. There's probably no permanent damage, Carlos had said when he'd had a spare second to look at it. She supposed she should be relieved. Mostly she wasn't sure how she could still be standing upright when she felt this bone-weary.
She fought down another yawn, making sure to hold the sheets as far from her clothes as she could manage. They were destined to be turned into bandages in short order. And her clothes, if anything, were more blood-stained than before. When the siege—as Carver insisted on calling it—had lifted, she and Carlos had both gone to work and hadn't stopped for much more than a breath since. The evening and much of the night had disappeared into an exhausting monotony of patching up cuts and the occasional burn and, at Carver's insistence, inspecting everyone for hidden bites.
Shel counted herself lucky that she hadn't found any. As it was she still caught herself glancing over her shoulder, half expecting to see Carver waiting there, gun in hand.
There was coal dust clinging to her sweatshirt now too, from when she'd hugged Russell. He'd staggered back from the mine well after dark with a cut on his hand that had badly needed stitches. Luke had a similar, shallower cut on the back of his head, just below the hairline. And Nick had inhaled so much dust Carlos gave him one of their remaining inhalers to try and help clear his lungs. They all had a ringing in their ears to rival hers, but at least they'd come back at all. The same couldn't be said for two of the five volunteers Carver had sent out.
Yes, it had been a long night—for everyone—and it wasn't over yet. Around the time Russell had shuffled back out of the infirmary, carrying a promise to check on Becca for her, Tisha had brought Cassidy in. She'd gone into labor, two weeks before Carlos had thought she was due.
The only reason Shel was leaving now was because Carlos had forced her out. Maybe because she'd started swaying on her feet, or maybe he'd grown tired of her jumping at every unexpected noise. Besides, Cassidy's condition was in something like a holding pattern for now; it might be hours before he'd need her again. Rest, he'd instructed her with a now-familiar mix of warmth and firmness.
She'd picked up the sheets instead. A project was just what she needed. And despite the weariness that had crept into her every muscle and joint and the space behind her eyes, she didn't dare close her eyes. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
Outside the infirmary, the surviving residents of Howe's had more or less collapsed into sleep. Lucky for them, she thought as she walked. Only a few lanterns or flashlights drifted around the living quarters, or up the stairs to Carver's office. The blinds there were drawn, but yellow lamplight blazed out through the gaps. Shel turned her attention away and shuffled toward a wooden bench, its varnish half peeled off, that someone had dragged in from the garden center. It sat tucked away in a quiet corner, but near enough to the infirmary that she could hear if Carlos or Tisha called for her. And, conveniently, it put the smear of blood and gore by the stock room out of her line of sight.
She hadn't realized just how much her feet and lower back ached until she sat down and let herself relax—or try to, if only for a minute. Muscles twinged painfully, and she let herself slump against the back of the bench, hoping to ease some of the strain.
Across the way, Amanda Randall had sprawled on another empty bench, using her blood-stained jacket for a pillow. She looked paler and older than Shel remembered her, and somehow smaller. She was fast asleep, looking about as dead to the world as Shel felt.
One of her arms dangled off the bench, down to where her son Nick had ended up. He sat with one leg tucked up near his chest, the other stretched out in front of him, and clutching his shoulder almost like it was wounded. Shel wondered if maybe he'd pulled a muscle and hadn't told anyone. He was covered head to toe in dust still, but Shel didn't think he minded all that much. He had his cap tugged down over his eyes, and from the way his head slumped forward he had to be deeply asleep.
Amanda's hand reached down to his other shoulder and clutched it so tight her knuckles had nearly turned white.
Stifling a yawn, Shel unfolded the first of the bed sheets and got to work, using a set of fabric scissors borrowed from Tisha. Her fingers ached down to the bone already, making her movements slow and clumsy. As she worked Shel found herself beginning to hyper-focus until all she could see and hear was the fabric in front of her, the unsteady movement of her hands, and the quiet creak of the scissors.
It felt like only a second later that someone cleared their throat, startling her back to reality. "Hi. ...Shel?"
She glanced up, half expecting to see Becca or maybe Bonnie. Instead she found Carlos's daughter, Sarah, standing there. Sarah was a slender, wide-eyed girl a year or so older than Becca, with an unmistakable resemblance to her father. In her hands she held two cups of what smelled like black tea. The faint steam rising from them kept threatening to fog her glasses.
As soon as she realized she had Shel's attention, she held out one of the mugs. "Here." She spoke so softly Shel almost had to strain to hear her. "I thought...I thought maybe it would help. Daphne said it was okay," she added as a hasty afterthought.
"Thank you, sweetie," Shel murmured, her hands curling around the mug in an instant. At that moment, nothing in the world felt better than the gently warmed porcelain. "This is perfect."
Sarah's smile was bright and faintly crooked, the sort of thing that would have been contagious under normal circumstances. "You're welcome." After a hesitant pause, she held out the second mug. "Could you take this to my dad? He doesn't like me being in the infirmary when...you know."
When he has patients. Shel could understand that, especially now of all days. "Of course." Before she talked herself into standing up—all the muscles in her back started to ache at the mere thought—she took a single sip of tea. It wasn't very strong, but the warmth soothed all the same.
"I'll be right back." She set the sheets aside and stood up, resisting the urge to stretch. She was more likely to pull a muscle than anything right now.
"Are you making bandages? Can I help?"
"I'm trying to," Shel said, sighing, and stole another sip of tea. "Did your father ever show you how to do this?" When Sarah nodded, she continued, "Then if you don't mind, I'd sure appreciate it."
When she returned a few minutes later, Sarah was sitting on the bench with her feet tucked neatly under her, working her way through the sheet. The messy pile of bandages Shel had started was now a prim stack on the floor, folded with the precision of a military nurse.
"Your father says thank you, and that he loves you very much," Shel said, retaking her seat. Sarah's whole face brightened, "but that you should've gone to bed hours ago." For a brief instant, she spared a thought for Becca and hoped she was tucked safe in her bunk, sound asleep. I'll check on her, just as soon as I get a chance.
"I know," Sarah murmured, her head bent over the sheet. Her red-rimmed glasses slipped down her nose; she pushed them back up with her finger. "He's always worried about me."
"It's a parent thing. He can't help it." Shel took a few more sips of her tea before she picked up the other end of the sheet and started back to work, now using a pair of surgical scissors. "But he is right, you know."
"He usually is."
Shel thought Sarah sounded exhausted, but that might have been the haze of her own fatigue creeping in again. "I can finish here if you want to go to bed," she offered.
Sarah at once shook her head and turned every last ounce of her attention to the task at hand, as if she focused on it hard enough that would put an end to the conversation. Only after a long pause did she admit, in a voice so quiet Shel had to learn in close to hear her, "I can't sleep. I tried, but I...I really can't. I'm scared."
Shel softened at that, sighing against the mug as she took another drink of tea. "You aren't the only one. Everyone's scared out of their minds right now."
Sarah looked up at her with a curious tilt of her head. "Even my dad?"
"Even him." When she closed her eyes she could still see the stricken look on Carlos's face when he'd found a bite one of the guards had tried to hide. "He's just putting on a brave face so he doesn't frighten you. Or his patients. There's nothing wrong with being scared, Sarah. If you weren't scared, then I think I'd be worried."
She set the scissors aside as she mulled that concept over. "But people like Carver and Maddie don't seem scared either," she murmured, her forehead scrunched in confusion. "Are they just trying to be brave, too?"
Shel felt her whole body flinch. Every time she thought of Carver now she pictured him as he'd been standing over her, gun in hand. She took another sip of tea to stall her answer: "Yes." I don't know, and I think that scares the hell out of me.
"Oh." Sarah pushed her glasses back up her nose again as she tried to process that. Finally, having come to an unspoken conclusion, she picked her scissors back up again. "It's okay if I stay, right?"
"Of course." Shel smiled for the first time in what felt like days. "I could use the company."
Sarah smiled back, a little less shyly this time. "So could I."
Bonnie sat on the edge of Cassidy's cot and gently rocked her newborn girl—Leah—in an attempt to stop her fussing. Leah, not having much of that, stayed just on the verge of breaking out into real tears, her red, wrinkled face scrunching in something like confused distress.
"I know," Bonnie murmured to her, "I ain't your mama. She just needed to close her eyes for a bit." Though even as she said it Cassidy sat up again, albeit slowly and with a certain exhausted stiffness.
Bonnie had come into the infirmary near sunrise, hoping to get a bandage for a scrape that ran the length of her pinky finger—she'd snagged it on one of the armory's supply cabinets, of all things. Instead she'd found Carlos passed out in a folding chair, Tisha asleep on one of the cots, and Shel and Sarah near to comatose on a bench outside. Cassidy had been the only one awake, if just barely, singing her daughter to sleep. Bonnie found the bandage on her own—in his exhaustion, Carlos has left the supply cabinet unlocked—and then sat with her, figuring someone ought to keep her company.
"Looks just like her mama," Bonnie observed, smiling. Leah's skin was still an angry red from the birth, but it was already starting to darken and looked like it might soon match her mother's umber skin. She had a hint of her mother's button nose too, Bonnie thought.
Cassidy shook her head, sending a few of her short, dark dreadlocks flicking back and forth. "Nah. She looks more like her daddy." Her alto voice was still thin and hoarse, and when she spoke it grew hoarser still.
Bonnie was never quite sure what had happened to Cassidy's boyfriend. She wasn't sure anyone knew, for that matter. This was the first time she'd ever heard her mention him, even in passing. Cassidy was a tall, strikingly beautiful woman, just shy of thirty, with a long, aristocratic face—marred only by that cute button nose and a scar running the full length of her right cheek. And she usually had a standoffish attitude to match her looks. She didn't talk about whatever she'd been through before she came to Howe's, boyfriend included, and she kept mostly to herself.
Bonnie smiled again, rearranging the swaddling blankets when Leah flailed a chubby arm out of them. "You're gonna have to tell her about him."
"Yeah. Guess I will."
"You want to hold her again? Seems like she might settle better with you."
Cassidy shook her head, stifling a yawn with her slender hand. "In a minute. I'm afraid I might just drop her."
She'd just started to drift back to sleep when the tarp flew open and Carver strode in, George following close at his heels. "Fuck's sake, Bill," George was saying, his voice hushed and strained. "We'll figure something out, all right? Just let everybody catch their breath first."
Leah wailed once at the intrusion, trailing off into a wary whimper, which drew both men's attention. "Would you look at that," George murmured, his face breaking into a warm but weary grin. "You see? I told you I heard a baby crying." Carver, his attention already elsewhere, waved him off. George moved closer to Cassidy's bedside. "Hell, guess this means congratulations, Cass. You mind if I hold him?"
"Her," Cassidy corrected. She signaled Bonnie with a faint nod. "Go ahead."
Bonnie passed the baby into George's broad, waiting arms as carefully as she could. Leah scrunched up her little face again as if to start crying in earnest but then changed her mind, relaxing into a few wordless burbles instead. George beamed right back at her, some of the lines leaving his face for an instant. Bonnie had always thought he was the sort of man who'd desperately wanted to be a father but never quite managed to get around to it.
"What's her name?"
"Leah. After her grandmother." Cassidy sat up still, watching him with dark, wary eyes.
George continued to fuss over the baby while Carver surveyed the infirmary, grumbling under his breath about the mess. He nudged Carlos awake with a rather ungentle kick to his shoes. "You always leave the supply cabinet open? Get the fuck up." His voice was even more hoarse than usual, starting to crack from sheer exhaustion.
"Bill," George chided, "I'd bet you anything there's not a soul in this building awake besides us. No one's in the mood for petty theft."
By then, George had managed to completely block Bonnie's view. She could have leaned around him she supposed, but then she might also just tip over and pass out from sheer exhaustion. She heard rather than saw the scrape of metal on tile as Carlos got to his feet.
"I don't remember inviting you in." Carlos's voice was heavy with sleep, and it made his accent even thicker than usual.
"I don't remember needing an invitation into my own infirmary," Carver replied, his voice sharpening to a narrow point. "Last thing I need right now is your damn holier-than-thou bullshit. Just do your fucking job."
Something in the air seemed to draw itself in tight and hold its breath. George shifted his weight from one foot to the other, and the scuff of his boots on the floor almost made Bonnie wince. In his arms, Leah whimpered.
"You're not welcome in here any longer. Not after you murdered one of my patients."
Murder? Bonnie glanced over to Cassidy. Both of their brows had arched up, as if asking the same question.
"Carlos, now just hang on—" George's plea, however, fell on deaf ears.
"You've got some fucking nerve." If Carver's voice got any rougher Bonnie thought it might just turn to gravel. He'd started to pace back and forth; she watched him, and watched the brown splatters of blood on his coat, the weary drag of his feet. "I keep you—and your daughter—alive. More than that, I keep you safe. And this is how you decide you're gonna repay me?"
"Sarah has nothing to do with—"
"Will you let me fucking finish? That's about the least you can do."
Carlos sighed. "Fine. Say your piece."
"Andy was dying. And when he died, he was gonna turn and take out the throats of the folks helping him. You want to explain to Becca why you had to put her sister down? Or tell Amanda you got her only child killed? You want to lose the only trained help you got because you don't know when to cut your fucking losses?"
By the end, Carver's voice had risen perilously close to a shout. It was enough to startle Leah awake and make her cry. George turned away to shush her, rocking her in his arms. He either ignored or didn't see Cassidy motion for him to hand her back. On the other side of the room, Tisha finally stirred awake. "Bill? Carlos? What..."
Bonnie's eyes darted back and forth between them in the silence that followed. She didn't want to see a fight break out, but also didn't think she could dare intervene. You only know half the story, she told herself with a steadying breath. Getting in the middle could just make it worse. She glanced over at Cassidy, who shrugged, looking about as lost as she did.
"You crossed a line," Carlos said at last. Fatigue undermined the defiant edge to his voice. "In fact, you crossed several. But this is neither the time nor place for this conversation. For now, you've said your piece and I've said mine. Now please—" somehow the word sounded like it was forced from him— "go. As you so...aptly pointed out, I have an infirmary to clean."
Carver didn't move. Something in his stiff, defiant posture reminded Bonnie of a pot, seconds from boiling over. Or maybe she'd been stuck on too many kitchen shifts with Vera. "Bill," she tried, hesitating and soft. "Bill, when's the last time you got any sleep?"
George heard her at least and quickly latched on. "You're coming up on about three days, aren't you?" Something in his tone implied he already knew the answer.
"Something like that," Carver admitted after a moment. "Not your concern. I'll be fine."
Carlos seemed poised to offer some medical input but, perhaps wisely, stopped himself. He turned his attention to the supply cabinet instead. Tisha stumbled to her feet to help him, hiding a yawn behind her hand.
"That's what I thought." George finally handed Leah, now dozing again, back to her mother. Cassidy's arms circled around the baby, protective, and something in the hard edge of her jaw suggested she wouldn't be letting go anytime soon. "C'mon, Bill. You can go back to harassing the troops once we've had some shut eye."
"Couple things I gotta take care of first."
George sighed, shrugging his broad shoulders in something like defeat. Behind him, supplies rattled as they found their way back into the cabinet.
Carver turned to go—and then stopped, rounding on Bonnie. On instinct, she sat up straighter and looked him square in the eye. He looked exhausted; pale and gaunt and somehow small. "Bonnie, you and Gary dealt with the armory any?"
"Started to." The cupboards verged on bare, but he didn't need to hear that just now. Or the fact that she had no idea where Gary had disappeared to. She hadn't seen him since this morning. Passed out, drunk or sober, in a corner somewhere was her best guess. "I just needed a bandage, but—I'll get right back to it."
"See that you do. I want a full inventory tomorrow and a solid plan for how we're gonna restock what we lost." He waited for her to nod and then was gone, pushing one of the wall dividers aside with a screech of metal on tile. Everyone winced.
Maddie woke Becca up with one sharp shake of her shoulder. Becca grumbled and tried to twitch away, but she had a grip like steel. "What?" She wondered what time it was. It didn't feel like she'd slept long.
"Work to do. C'mon."
She waited until Becca had sat up and gotten her feet out of the sleeping bag before she let go. "Bring a jacket or something."
Becca fumbled for her sneakers, trying to will her eyes open more than halfway. As she tied the laces, she glanced over at Shel's sleeping bag. Empty—and tidy, the way she made it every morning. Either she was already up or she'd never made it to bed. "Have you seen my sister?" One bunk farther on, Vera was snoring face-down into her pillow.
Maddie shrugged. "Passed out by the infirmary, I think. Let's go."
Shuffling along in Maddie's wake, Becca followed through the small maze of cots and sleeping bags and into the stock room. A weak sort of daylight trickled in through the broken bay door. Someone was already hard at work; all the bodies she'd seen last night were gone, cleared away somewhere. Though the floor was still a mess of blood and viscera and shell casings. Becca's nose wrinkled at the wet, cloying smell. Thérèse and Alvin, with bandanas covering their faces to block out the smell, were just starting to mop up the worst of it. They moved sloppy and slow, almost like the walking dead themselves. Maddie passed them by without so much as a nod and slipped sideways through the gap in the bay door. Becca followed at her heels.
Outside they found another, grimmer story altogether.
The parking lot was still a veritable sea of bodies. They sprawled, hap-hazard, everywhere Becca looked. But most of them seemed to surround the building, particularly the loading dock, like some great low sea wall.
Sometimes she could've sworn the wall twitched. Or groaned.
"I didn't realize we killed so many," she wondered aloud.
"Probably a third of the herd. Maybe more. We got lucky. If Bill hadn't come up with that plan with the mine..." Maddie shrugged, miming shooting herself in the head. "Let's go."
"We got fucked, you mean," said a man's voice beside and below Becca, making her jump. She glanced down to see Gary, the creep Bonnie always got stuck working with. He was sitting with his back against the concrete, his knees tucked up near his chest. A glass bottle poked out from his lap. "Straight up fucked. Without the lube." Becca and Maddie both made disgusted faces over his head. Not even looking at them, he picked the bottle up and took a long drink. He hadn't shaved in a few days and the circles under his eyes were heavier than usual, even in the dim morning light.
"It's not that bad," Maddie replied with a dismissive sort of sniff. "We're still alive."
Gary laughed until he began to cough into his ragged jacket sleeve. "Speak for yourself." He held the bottle aloft to Becca. His arm swayed and shook and threatened to spill its dark contents over her shoes. "Hey, kid. You want any?"
Becca, her eyes widening, backed up a step without saying a word. He shrugged. "Your loss. And none for you, Madness," he slurred, pulling the bottle close again. "You're a fucking snitch."
"Beats being a drunk," Maddie shot back, deadpan. "Becca, let's go."
Near the middle of the parking lot—where the molotovs had hit yesterday morning—she saw human figures moving in the dim, gray light. They were dragging dead walkers into a great big pile.
"Here." Maddie motioned toward a path someone had clear cut through the bodies. "Watch your ankles. I saw one still moving over there."
She pointed, but Becca wasn't looking. Cold pricked at her fingers, sharp and damp, and her breath iced in the air in front of her. At least the faint coating of frost lessened the smell. She tugged her sweatshirt sleeves down around her hands and followed Maddie, resisting the urge to hug herself for warmth. As they walked she heard a faint patter of small, running feet behind her. She glanced back to see Maddie's brothers, Eli and Garrett, sprinting after them. Their breath frosted in the air in quick, wispy puffs. She waved with one awkward twitch of her hand. The one with the birthmark on his cheek waved back. They were both wearing thin woolen gloves and coats about two sizes too big.
At the parking lot's center, Johnny, Wyatt, and a few of the other guards were carting bodies into a massive pile. It looked like back-breaking work; Johnny had stripped down to a thin beige t-shirt despite the cold air, and Wyatt's long hair was plastered to the back of his neck with sweat. As Becca watched, one of the other guards—Stan, she thought—crawled up the pile to splash some gasoline over the top.
"What are we doing out here? I can't lift a whole body." Becca paused, then amended, "Probably. I bet I could if I tried." Walkers were dead, with bits of themselves falling off all the time. They couldn't be that heavy.
"We're searching the bodies before they get burned." Maddie stopped at a clear spot in the parking lot to tug on a pair of gloves. "Some of the fresher ones might have ammo on them. Maybe some other supplies if we're lucky. And pull off any clothes you think we can use, too."
She handed Becca a pair of thick leather gloves—they were several sizes too big, and smelled vaguely of hay and manure. As soon as Becca had pulled the first one on, Maddie pulled a small black knife out of a sheath on her boot and handed that over, too. "If you catch any still moving, put them down. Right through the eye, all the way to the hilt. Got that?"
Becca twirled the knife between her fingers. The gloves made her grip extra awkward and unwieldy. "Got it."
"Good. We'll start here and work our way back to the building. Eli, Garrett, take the ones heading out to the road."
The boys brushed past Becca at a jog, almost elbowing her to the ground in the process. Becca herself still stood twirling the knife, her gaze moving from one dead walker to the next and then the next. Maddie watched her, seeming confused.
"You never looted the dead freaks before?"
Becca shook her head no. Roman or Vince or Shel had always taken them away to burn as soon as they were dead. Dead again.
"Your sister never taught you?" When Becca shook her head no again, Maddie frowned. "Wow. What did she teach you?"
Becca thought on that for a long minute before she came up empty. "How to stitch a wound?"
Maddie either didn't hear her or just didn't care. "It's not like it's hard. You just have to make sure they're really dead before you start." She bent to examine her first body, rolling it over onto its back with her foot while she tied her brown hair back into its customary ponytail.
That was when Wyatt, pausing to rub his face with his shirt sleeve, caught sight of them. "Becca? The hell are you...? Little bro, you better get back inside." His attempt at a stern tone was undercut by his pausing to push his glasses back up his nose. "Does Shel even know where you are?"
"She doesn't care." Technically correct was, as far as Becca was concerned, the best kind of correct. And you're not my mom, Wyatt, she wanted to add. But that struck her as too childish.
"The hell she doesn't." He started forward, rolling up his sleeves. "C'mon. You're—okay, what the hell? All you kids are going back inside."
That got Johnny's attention. He dropped the body he'd been dragging along by its armpits and straightened, dusting off his hands. "Leave it, Wyatt. Maddie knows what she's doing; they'll be fine." Although as he said it he caught sight of Eli and Garrett in the further distance. He frowned, pointing to them and shouting so that they could hear him. "Hold up. Not you two. Back inside."
"But—" one of them started in a distinct whine.
"This shit's too big a mess for you. Back inside. Go...shit, I dunno, ask somebody if they need help cleaning up."
Neither boy moved, watching Maddie expectantly. Maddie paused to think for a long moment, her thin lips pursing together. Then she inclined her head back towards Howe's. The boys frowned but did as they had silently been told, picking their way back to the building.
Satisfied, Johnny started straight back to work. Wyatt still hesitated, the lines on his face deepening the more he frowned. "I don't want the two of them out here either." He looked directly at Becca as he said it. Maddie, ignoring him, had already begun to strip one walker of his down jacket.
Johnny waved his concerns away. "Jo's out putting down the ones we missed. They'll be fine."
Becca took a second look around. Nearer to the road, a tall, dark-haired woman was moving slowly through the bodies. She walked with a pronounced limp and made heavy use of a single metal crutch. Every so often she would stop to use that walking stick like a club, bringing it down on a walker's skull with a popping noise that echoed across the lot. Even from this distance Becca could see her khakis were stained with blood and gore.
"Becca," said Maddie, huffing in impatience. "Get to work."
That settled it, at least in her mind. She put her back to Wyatt and bent to examine one of the bodies next to her, trying not to gag at the smell. Wyatt made some vague annoyed noise, but that was the end of the discussion. Figured.
It was disgusting work. Even more disgusting than she'd imagined it would be, which had been pretty gross. And it went so slow. It took forever to check pockets and remove shoes and boots and sometimes a jacket worth salvaging. Not that anyone would ever catch her wearing any of these cast-offs. Not now that she'd seen where they'd come from.
The sun was up over the mountaintops now, and Becca hadn't even made a full circle around the ever-growing corpse pile. Her hands were sluggish and stiff with cold, and she'd dry-heaved from the smell—and some of the grislier bodies—so many times that her throat felt raw. Maddie was working farther out, near where Jo was still circling, so she didn't even have anyone to talk to to distract her. Unless she wanted to try talking to Wyatt or Johnny, which she very much did not.
She wanted to be back inside. In her sleeping bag where it was warm, and you couldn't smell the dead outside if you pulled it up tight enough against your nose.
Becca pulled her hand out of another empty, damp pocket as someone started shouting behind her. "Hey! You assholes having fun yet?"
She glanced back over her shoulder. Gary had left his seat and begun to half-straggle towards them. The bottle was still in his hand, half empty now, the dark liquid inside sloshing back and forth as he moved.
"Oh, Christ," she heard Stan mutter behind her. "Here we go."
"Just ignore him," said another guard—Reggie, she thought his name was. "He'll get bored and wander off."
"Yeah, and maybe wander into a lurker that's still got some bite left in him." As Stan said it, Gary was shouting hey, assholes! again. The sound echoed back off the trees.
"We should be so lucky," Johnny grumbled. "Where does he even get that shit anyway?"
"Dunno," Stan answered in the same low tone. "But I'm starting to wish he'd share." As he said it he heaved another body onto the pyre-to-be. It was particularly decayed; Becca had skipped over it earlier because it barely had any clothes on, let alone anything of real value. Now its arm popped free of its socket and rolled down the pile, landing with a fat-sounding plop on the asphalt. Becca felt her stomach lurch again and doubled over until the urge to heave subsided.
"Hey, look at the kid!" She heard laughter, high and thin and mocking, and looked up. Gary was using his bottle to point right at her—at least until he pulled it back to take a drink. "I think she's gonna hurl!" He cackled again. It reminded her of the witch in that Oz movie.
Wyatt slid between them then, blocking her view. Now all she could see was the butt of his jeans. Gross. Becca planted her foot between two very dead walkers—tried not to think about why something went squelch under her sneaker—and peered around him.
"How about you leave her alone, dumbass?"
Gary waved the bottle like he was trying to push Wyatt aside. The fact that there was still ten feet between them didn't phase him much.
Behind him, Becca saw Reggiemoving towards Howe's. He jogged at a fast clip; he'd pulled himself onto the loading bay and disappeared inside by the time Gary managed to string another coherent sentence together. Everything before that had been slurred nonsense.
"Fuck off, four eyes."
"Very original."
"This is still America, jackass. I can talk to her if I want."
Becca, now leaning so far around Wyatt she felt in danger of falling over, made a face. "Why would I ever want to talk to you? Creep."
Gary staggered backward, miming a shot to the heart. He tripped on a body and ended up sprawling backwards on the damp, bloody concrete, scotchclutched to his chest like a child. That drew some petty laughs from Johnny, who turned back to work like that settled things.
After a couple false starts, Gary pulled himself back to his unsteady feet. "You think this is fucking funny?" The words were broken up by a pause to take a long drink. "You're the fucking jokes. Kid, you wanna know a secret? You're gonna die." He spoke with such sudden, sober clarity that Becca shrank back a step, her stomach lurching again.
"He's just a drunk asshole," Wyatt muttered without turning to look at her. Some comfort. "Ignore him."
"At least I'm not a stupid drunk!" Becca shouted back, picking up Maddie's earlier insult. Somehow it sounded less impressive when she said it, stumbling and stuttering over half the words.
"We're all gonna die," Gary continued, ignoring her. "Gonna end up like Andy or Jason or the dumbasses who got bit. Dead as fuckin' doornails. And then we're gonna end up there." He pointed to the pile of bodies with a sudden aura of surety. His hand wobbled and began to tremble, but he wouldn't let it drop. Instead he swung it around to point at her. "But you're gonna go first, you loud-mouthed little brat—"
"Shut up, man." Wyatt's voice had a sharp edge she'd never heard before. "I'm not gonna tell you again."
Becca had the idea that she should fight back. With words or action or both, it didn't matter; she wanted to fight back. But her mouth was dry as a stone, and though her hands had balled into fists her feet were rooted on the spot. I'm not going to die. That's just stupid. He's drunk like Roman that one time. Ugh. ...But what if he's right? He isn't. Is he? She looked around, trying to find Maddie in hopes that she'd back her up. But she was still working alongside Jo, both of them ignoring the whole situation. Becca shifted her from foot to foot, uncertainty making her feel weightless.
"You wanna go, four eyes? C'mon, I'll put us both out of our misery."
Wyatt started forward. So did Johnny, but he was reaching for the gun holstered behind his back. "All right," he growled, "that's enough bullshit outta everybody."
A rattling clang from the building distracted everyone. Bonnie had tried to leave via the broken door and tripped on the way. She steadied herself and kept moving, blushing to match her tousled hair. Reggie followed at her heels.
Great. Now it's an idiot party. If only Vince were here to complete the picture.
Bonnie's appearance had an immediate, distracting effect on Gary. "Gingersnap!" He dropped one arm around her shoulders and tried to pull her into a sideways hug. Bonnie played along limply, looking like the earth would be doing her a favor if it swallowed her whole in the next minute. "Did they drag you out here just for little old me?"
"No—sorta," she admitted, trying to shrink away. "You're drunk, Gary."
"Is that what I am? Well, that explains it." He took another drink just as Bonnie made a grab for the bottle. She missed. He didn't seem to notice.
"I think you oughta come back in now." Becca couldn't tell if Bonnie was trying to be soothing or if she was just nervous. Her hand moved for the bottle again, much slower than before. "You're—" she glanced around, saw Becca— "you're spooking the kids."
"He is not!" was Becca's immediate, white-hot retort. "He's just a dumbass." Out of the corner of her eye she saw Johnny grinning. When he saw her looking he gave her a quick thumbs up.
"Well you're spooking me," Bonnie tried again, stammering. "So let's go. Before you wake up Bill or somebody and get us all in trouble."
"Aw, Gingersnap, you know I can't say no to you. Except—" he was giggling now— "except when I can."
Bonnie had her hands around the bottle by then. "You ain't even talkin' sense, Gary." She pulled, ever so gently, and it began to slip out of his grip. "I think you better go lay down." By the time she finished the sentence, she had a firm hold of the bottle. Gary, oblivious, let his hand drop to his side. His other arm was still wrapped tight around Bonnie's hunched shoulders.
"Why, Mrs. Robinson—" Becca's nose scrunched in confusion— "are you trying to seduce me?" Gary grinned, leaning forward until Bonnie's nose almost touched his. "I didn't think I was your type."
The blush crept all the way up to Bonnie's ears. She cleared her throat, passing the bottle to Reggie's waiting hand. Behind her back, so Gary couldn't see. "You really ain't," she muttered. "Get your brain out of the gutter and c'mon."
"You know damn well the gutter's where we both belong." He swung his hand like he was trying to slap her back, forgetting that his arm was still draped over her shoulders. He staggered again but didn't fall down. Becca wished he would. And stay down this time.
"You got that right, at least," Bonnie sighed. She steered him back inside, weaving her way around fallen walkers. And pausing every so often to grab Gary by the back of his jacket to stop him from tipping over. He was still talking, but Becca couldn't make out what he was saying.
"I'm—yeah, I'm just...gonna go help her." Reggie started forward, then stopped, started to set the scotch bottle down, then finally handed it off to Stan with a helpless shrug. "I'll be right back."
Stan sniffed at the bottle's contents. "The hell am I supposed to do with this?"
Johnny held his gloved hand out as an answer. "Cheers," he said when Stan handed it over, and drank long and deep. "Wyatt?" He wiped the bottle's mouth on a clean part of his sleeve and offered it out.
Wyatt, determined to ignore everything that had just happened, had already gone back to work. "Pass," he grunted, slinging another body onto the pile.
Johnny chewed on his lower lip, mulling something over. Then he jogged over to Becca, holding the bottle out for her to take. "Baby sips," he advised when she took it. "Don't you dare puke on my shoes."
The glass was surprisingly cold; she could feel its chill even through her gloves. But the liquid inside felt searing hot—it burned her lips and her tongue and all the way to her stomach, even with the tiny sip she'd taken. Her stomach churned, irritated, and she coughed a few times into her sleeve.
She tried another experimental sip as Johnny nudged her with his elbow. "Ignore that drunk son of a bitch, all right? You're doing just fine, kid."
"I know that." The raspy edge to her voice startled her. She handed the bottle back; her head was already starting to spin. Or maybe that was just her imagination. She couldn't tell.
He wiped the bottle clean again and took another drink, chuckling to himself. "Tell you what, kid. Next time, we just let Bill catch him. That'll learn him."