CHAPTER 9
Hannah watched as Joel and Strauss left to meet with the Captain. She put on a smile for anyone who looked at her, but for some reason she felt alone. With Jessie gone it was just the two of them and she hadn't gotten to know anyone here yet, even though they all seemed like nice people.
She remembered her old life, when she would entertain her friends and co-workers at her apartment, complete with wine and beer and those little cracker plates with the foreign cheeses. She was able to her friends and they all shared similar goals of careers or climbing social ladders. Now a heartbeat and the lack of homicidal tendencies were good enough for her.
She walked around the edge of the grounds, noticing the patches of deciduous grasses and studying the tall fence surrounding the portion of the field they were using to grow food. It took up most of the grounds and some of the fence had been extended, she assumed because they needed to grow more food.
She walked up to the fence to take a closer look. Just as the reverend had said, there were rows of corn on one end, rows of potatoes and some species of cabbage along the edges. Running from one side of the fence to another were long pipes with holes in the bottom and she traced the path with her eyes until she saw a hose snaking its way up toward the roof of the stadium.
"People aren't usually allowed to play on the fence, dearie," said an old man from within the fence. He wore thick glasses and his clothes were caked with dirt. He had a good amount of grey stubble covering his face and he squinted at her.
"Oh," said Hannah. "Sorry I didn't know."
"Course you didn't. That's why I didn't cuss at ya like I do the little ones. They're always playing tag or hide and whatever, but always climbing on my fence." He mumbled something else under his breath but Hannah couldn't make it out.
"Well, kids will be kids I suppose," said Hannah.
The man reached down and threw a hunk of dirt and some weeds into a rusty wheelbarrow. "Suppose so," he said. "I'm Leonard Macintyre, by the way."
"I'm Hannah, nice to meet you Leonard," she said, smiling.
"You can call me Leo."
"Alright, Leo. So you take care of the crops?"
"Yep," he said. "I know every leaf of every plant in here. Without these plants, we aint got no food."
"Are those pipes some kind of irrigation system?"
"Yep. At first we were watering them by hand, back when we had less people around here, but then we expanded the field and it was takin' too long. So we built some large rain collectors up on the roof and they all drain down here into these pipes." He tapped one of the pipes with a shovel. A sprinkle of dirt landed on top of his head. Hannah giggled.
"Oh it's alright," he said. "I think by now I'm probably more dirt than skin anyways."
Hannah smiled. "Sometimes I prefer dirt to people anyways."
"Oh don't tell him that," Chrissie said. "You'll never get rid of him." Hannah didn't even notice Chrissie had walked up behind her. She was happy to see her.
"He seems harmless enough," Hannah said.
"Only thing sure to keep him at arm's length is a bar of soap," said Chrissie. Both girls laughed.
Leo tossed his shovel into the wheelbarrow. "Aint nothing bad ever came from dirt, unlike people. Dirt aint never turned into any monsters and killed people and that's the truth. I think you understand what I'm saying, Hannah. Don't let Christie put wrong thoughts in your head. It was nice meeting you." He pushed the wheelbarrow down the dirt path and disappeared between rows of corn.
Chrissie laughed. "Did you touch his fence?"
"Yes! Apparently I wasn't supposed to."
"Yeah," Chrissie said. "He's weird about it. Even when I go in there he watches me like a hawk. He's very protective of the crops, but I guess that's a good thing. We didn't always have a fence but Haven grew and more people needed to eat. The field was smaller back then and when some of the crops began to disappear during the night, we decided it needed protection."
"You mean people were stealing food? Why?"
"We didn't have much. We tried our best to give everyone enough food, but it wasn't enough most days. Empty bellies don't tend to make honest people. Now thanks to the food blacks, everyone gets the same." They walked around the field as the sun disappeared behind the stands. "So what did you mean about the dirt?"
Hannah told her all about her parents and the farm and her love for growing things. Chrissie had grown up near the ocean and preferred the beach to a field of corn.
"I've never been to the ocean," Hannah said.
"Never?"
"Nope, we were going to go to Myrtle Beach for vacation, but there was a large storm that dropped a tree on our barn and that was the end of that."
"Well, maybe someday you will. Do you wanna go in?"
"In where?" Hannah said.
"Inside the fence! I have something I want to show you."
"Are we allowed? Isn't there a guard by the gate?"
"Don't worry about it. Let's go," Chrissie said as she grabbed Hannah's hand and pulled her along the path to the front gate. Her hands were soft and they reminded Hannah of her mother's hands. Chrissie's blonde hair fluttered behind her as she ran, and she looked back at Hannah and smiled. They turned the corner and stood in front of the guard, who was a small Hispanic man.
"Hey Carlos!" said Chrissie. "I'm gonna show Hannah around the field."
Even though Carlos smiled when he saw Chrissie, he didn't move. "I'm sorry Chrissie. I'm not supposed to let anyone in that isn't approved by the Captain."
"I'm approving her," Chrissie said. "Now let us in."
"If the Captain finds out I let her in, I'll be on hunting duty for a month. You're killing me, chica."
Chrissie's tone softened. "Don't worry Carlos, we'll be in and out and nobody will be put on hunting duty, I promise."
Carlos sighed. "Fine, go ahead. But I'm not covering for you."
"Thank you!" Chrissie said, kissing Carlos on the cheek. "You're the best."
"Uh-huh," he said, unlocking the gate and pulling it open.
Hannah watched as Chrissie walked through the rows of crops. She looked like a completely different person than when she was in the medical facility. When she saw her the other night she looked tired and run-down, looked like she had the world on her shoulders, but seeing her here, running through the rows of green plants with the beams of sunlight playing with her hair, Hannah thought she looked free. Hannah couldn't help but smile when she watched her.
"Over here," Chrissie said, ducking under some low-hanging pipes next to a row of cabbages. "See?"
Hannah saw a ten foot by ten foot square of green, fuzzy plants. Chrissie was watching her with a smile on her face.
Hannah bent down and touched the fuzzy leaves. "Is this sage?" she said.
"Yes, you do know your plants! What do you think?"
"How did you manage to get wild sage? This is a European species. Chrissie, this is amazing."
"I know, right? About a year ago, someone showed up in Haven with a bag of seeds he had grabbed from a gardening store near Augusta and one of those packets had these!"
"I remember when I was in college, one of my professors always talked about sage as the magical herb that could do everything and anything." Hannah had pulled a lock of her hair over her upper lip and did an impression of an old man.
Chrissie laughed. "It doesn't do everything, but it's good for inflammation or reducing a fever. It's nature's cure-all. I've been taking the leaves and making a syrup out of it. It takes God-awful but it does the trick."
"I also heard it can keep your hair from turning grey."
"Really?" Chrissie said.
"I don't know," said Hannah. "I'll try it and let you know!"
They both laughed and Chrissie stared at down at the dirt. Her smile faded away. "I know it may not look like it, but I'm doing the best I can."
"I know you are Chrissie, don't worry about it. I've traveled to around to different camps and towns and no one has anything like you. You are one of a kind."
"Yeah?"
"Absolutely."
"You're so nice," Chrissie said. "I'm glad you're here. Joel is a lucky guy."
"Thanks," Hannah said. "but Joel and I aren't like, a thing or anything." Hannah tried not to sound like a school girl, but failed completely. "When our group was split by a pack of walkers, we went one way and everyone else went another. We never saw any of them again. He's great but we're just really good friends and even though I trust him with my life, he's not really my type."
"Why not?"
"It's been a long time since I've given any thought to relationships. Every day has been just about surviving. Every day my only thought was 'Will I live through another day?' and everything about a normal life just kind of took a backseat." Hannah drew funny-looking stick figures in the dirt. "Besides, if you don't love people, then it doesn't hurt so much when you lose them." Hannah tried to hold back the tears, hoping Chrissie wouldn't notice.
Chrissie grabbed her hand. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have brought it up."
"It's alright," she said, composing herself. "I had met Tess in my last year of college. She was studying to become a marine biologist and one day she asked me out. Eight months later we were living together when the outbreak hit. She was always the strong one right from the beginning, telling me it was going to blow over and that everything would be fine. The first thing we did was try to get out of the city and into the less populated areas. Her parents lived near Jacksonville and we were going to try to make it there. She kept calling it a 'road trip' and she would talk about all the places we would see." Hannah laughed and wiped the wetness from her eyes. "We never even made it to Florida. The roads were impassable and people were just going crazy. We stayed with a large camp before that was overrun, too. They were coming from every direction and we had nowhere to run."
"What happened?"
"She gave me a kiss and told me everything was going to be fine, that she was going to draw them away and that I should run. She said she would meet up with me near the highway. I was alone on the highway for five days before another group found me. They said I was almost dead from dehydration and lack of food but I still went kicking and screaming. I never saw her again."
"That's horrible. Hannah, I am so sorry."
"After that I just shut down my emotions and tried to be the strong one. I wasn't quite sure why I was surviving but something told me I had to." She looked at Chrissie. "And then I was brought here and there are crops and food and laughing and children and Leo and you. All of a sudden I have to figure out what else I want to do with my life."
"Have you told Joel all of this?"
"No," Hannah said. "You're the first."
"Well then," Chrissie said, standing up and brushing the dirt from her shorts. "I guess we better get started then."
"Get started with what?"
"Living," Chrissie said.
Hannah smiled and they walked toward the dirt path leading to the gate. They joked and laughed and talked about plants and herbs and holistic medicines. Hannah felt comfortable with Chrissie and hoped that Joel's meeting with the Captain had gone well and he would come back with good news. The Captain was standing in front of the gate when they arrived. His face was stern.
"Christie," he said. "What is she doing in here? You know the rules."
"I know," said Chrissie.
Hannah jumped in. "It wasn't her fault, she was just showing me some things. I promise I didn't do anything wrong. She didn't either."
"Hannah," he said. "As I explained to your friend Joel, Haven has rules and they are there for a reason. We do not break them. We live in a world where rules and walls are the only things that separate us from the walkers. I'll excuse it this time, but you will find I am not always so lenient." He looked at Chrissie, who was staring at the ground. "I'm disappointed in you Christie."
Hannah didn't want this man ruining their evening. "Come on Chrissie, let's get out of here." They walked toward the other side of the field and Chrissie was quiet. "I mean come on!" Hannah said. "I know he's the big bad leader around here but who the hell does he think he is, talking to you like that?"
"He's my father," Chrissie said.
A/N: Thanks for reading and reviewing! Special thanks to Nameless Wildflower! Watch out for Chapter 10! - JB
