11. Twisted mass of rotten muck

The rode for a while, until Cleetus halted the pick-up and climbed out, "Twenty miles out, little lady, but I see a reststop up ahead a little further down. We should check it out, I reckon."

"Might be wise.", Hakima agreed, "I'll take Scooter and scout it out, when you see me waving bring the truck up. Do you have a crowbar or something, Cleetus? I don't want to make too much noise if there are walkers in there."

"Can't help you with that, little lady, I guess you'll have to shoot them."

"Outstanding. Come on Scooter."

"Right behind you, missy.", Scooter answered as he climbed out.

"I bet."

Billy-Mae laughed at that, "Forget it, uncle Scoot, she has you pegged and on red alert!"

As they made their way to the reststop, Scooter muttered under his breath.

"Sheesh, Scooter, lighten up a bit. Enjoy it. You have some alone-time with me now."

"Missy, you've been teasing me from the git. You deserve five around the ears, you do."

"Give it time, pretty soon someone will do it for you. No need to break your hand on my skull."

"That Deacon-fellow will take care of it? Amy-Lee had some harsh words to say to him. Lemme tell ya, it wasn't pretty."

"Yeah, and a few other people that don't agree with me. What's this Amy-Lee thing? Her name is Emily."

"That's right, missy. Amy-Lee, as we been saying all along."

Hakima shook her head in amusement, "Whatever, Scooter, whatever. You guys adopted her quick, though. Thank you."

"It ain't a thing, missy. Amy-Lee is hurtin' and it doesn't look like she and her pa will clear the air soon. We never let children out in the rain like that, we don't. So, when Mable declared her family, that was the end of that."

"Mable must be a special woman."

"Mable is Mable, missy. I hope that she'll be able to let Amy-Lee go when the girl is back on her feet. When she lost her first daughter, no one was able to get through to her for days. She was besides herself, she was."

"I'm sorry. What happened?"

"Heart-condition. Poor thing died during surgery, two weeks old."

"That's...tragic."

"Then she married Cleetus and things turned around. Billy-Mae, her second, is healthy like a horse, she is."

"Seriously? I thought Cleetus married his high-school sweetheart. He seems like the kind of man to do that, you know. Marry young and make it work."

"Cleetus? He settled in our town what... 30 years ago I guess. No one knew where he came from and he never shared. Took a position as a deputy and chased Mable's deadbeat boyfriend off. He was her knight in shining armor, he was."

"Heh, I wasn't even born when that must have came down."

"Lemme tell you, missy, in all those years since, I've never seen Cleetus angry, raise his voice or hand to his family. I think that's why Billy-Mae came back after college. Her ma and pa are the world to her, they are."

"What did Billy-Mae major in?"

"Don't rightly know, missy. She didn't major in being a killer, if that's what you're asking."

"Not cool, Scooter."

"I have the right of it, though. You enjoy this too much, missy. I call it like I see it, you're naturally born bad, you are."

"How did this conversation become about me?"

"That's who you are, missy. You draw eyes to ya, you do."

"Let's just be silent."

"You don't like people prying, do you?"

"Scooter, I'm naturally born bad, what else is there to know? Seriously though, let's be silent and sweep the reststop."

It was an uneventful sweep. The reststop was deserted and trice looted.

"Well, that's done, I'll wave Cleetus and the rest over, missy."

"Wait, Scooter. Let's take our time. I have been on missions that went south just because the all-clear was given too soon. Nobody's fault, but things can go sour in a heartbeat. With a little extra effort, we can be totally sure."

"Look, missy, ain't no one here but us."

"I agree, but you should be thinking about your family. Their safety is on us."

Scooter considered that, "All right then, missy, one more look-see."

As they were doing their extra sweep, a car came to a screeching stop, a cardoor slammed and heavy footsteps were a prelude to Jake Deacon crashing in. He quickly scanned for Hakima, spotted her and was on her the next second. Jake grabbed Hakima by the neck and dragged her outside, where he threw her face-first against his car.

It had the desired effect, as Hakima's nose hurted hard enough to prevent her from retaliating.

"Now you listen to me, Haki, and you talk to me."

"Awh, motherfucker! Sheesh, fuck!"

"Listen, there was a mother there who lost three children in that attack, Big-M died and Jacob lost his partner Izekal. Where do you get off ignoring all that pain and ordering people around like that?"

"If you broke my nose.."

"Goddamned, Haki! Stop being a selfish bitch for a moment."

"All right, next time when we get decimated with a second wave coming, I'll organize a healing-session first, okay? Get touchy-feely with the survivors, have show and tells with pictures of eaten family-members, the works. I can do that. Sure."

"Haki, the mother stayed behind!"

"Good, she would slow us down anyway, Jake. Allah, I don't need this crap."

"Slow us...", Jake looked at Hakima in disbelief, "How deep have you sunken into your madness, Haki? Tell me, how deep?"

Hakima struggled to her feet and gingerly felt her nose, while keeping her head bowed forward to let her nose freely bleed, "Idunno."

"What is it with you? What you did in Jemen was inexcusable, but we're not in Jemen, damn you. But no, you just carry on, do you? From one slaughter to the next, getting wet on the death-count."

"I was commendated for my action in Jemen, you know that."

"It was a school, you fuck, a school. You don't fire anti-materiel rounds into a school! I think that if I crack open your skull, I won't see a human brain in there, but some twisted mass of rotten muck."

"Idunno."

"Haki, stop. Just stop. We lost people today and you don't lose a beat. It used to be different. YOU used to be different."

"No, I was always like this. But when we were a thing, you choose not to see it. And the rest of them didn't want to see it either."

"Haki, the camp-"

"-The camp is your fault, motherfucker! Keeping a camp with destitutes stationary for almost a week? What were you thinking? This one is on you, and not on me."

"I had to take a chance on you showing up, we had some zombies, but we killed them easy enough. Cleetus and his brother even had to stop roaming because they went too far from the motel. By my information, the area was secure."

"Okay let's compare notes then. Government calls them walkers. The walkers react to sound and home in on that. Somehow, they gather in numbers and keep walking. The larger the group of sorry bastards you so desperately try to help, the lower the group's overall life-expectancy. At this point, I estimate that two days is the max for encampment. We should cut all useless people loose.

Seriously."

"Are you even listening to yourself? None of that sounds remotely alien to you?"

"How many children were lost?"

"Why do you want to know that, Haki? So you can wring your hands in glee?"

Haki rolled her eyes, "So the drama. How many children were lost?"

"Three, all belonging to the same mother."

"It's sad. But you have to understand that there are no children anymore. There are no elderly people anymore. Just alive people. And if those alive people want to survive long enough to start rebuilding, they'll have to cut away everything that slows them down. I know it, and Allah be witness, I started out right when this came down. But then I found your daughter and once I knew who she was, I couldn't leave her behind. Look where that got me."

"Bet you took the chance to start murdering your way out."

"Nah, the walkers got that covered for me. It no means nothing. We won't see the end of it, you and me both, you know that, don't you?"

Jake took a moment to see if Hakima was serious. There was a little smile on her lips, but there was something in her eyes that weirded him out, "Okay, gipsy-queen, why won't you and I survive this?"

"Because you're too stupid to learn and I'll just get killed doing what I do. Kinda surprised at myself it didn't happen yet, but here we are. There's no way this ends well."

"What do you mean?"

"I kept wearing my fatigues, behaving like a Marine, because I was sure I could link up and be part of a major counter-offensive. But I've seen the herd. The one I spotted was well over one hundred walkers. How many herds are there? Nobody knows. If you want my opinion, this is humanity's extinction cycle."

Jake shook his head, "I'm not going to turn away people because of this. We can't lose our humanity, Haki. If we give that up, then..."

"If you give up your humanity, you become a survivor. Anyway, it's time for me to stop being a Marine and see if my civvies still fit. I'll be leaving now. I promised Emily I'd bring her to her father and that's what I did. I'm not going to die fighting for a lost cause. The Hakima Gunay cause has a good chance at winning.", Hakima took her cover off and let it drop to the ground. She reached up behind her head and freed her hair, powerfully shaking her head to let the strands find their way. Most of her face suddenly disappeared behind a curtain of sleek raven hair.

"It's been fun, Jake. I wish you would make me scream till orgasm one more time, but yeah, that's not in the books."

Hakima started to loosen her jacket while stepping closer to Jake. She went to her toes to bring her face up close to Jake's and gave him a kiss. Then she walked on, dropping her jacket along the way.

Scooter walked up to Jake, "For a moment I thought you were close to killing to her, Deacon."

"If this all wouldn't had happened, if the world was still normal.., I was meeting her at that motel to kill her.", Jake sighed and started walking too. Other survivors of the camp were pulling up near Cleetus' pick-up and he had a lot to contend with. Scooter just watched him going.