Chapter 35 - Unfinished Business
David pops open the sewer grate above us, as the bright morning sun shines on us once again as we rise from the darkness of the old sewer. David's "back way" was really an old sewer system that just happened to have a couple points in which we could enter the city through manholes.
As we all slowly make our way out of the sewer, we join David behind an old shipping container, the seven of us huddled out of sight.
"I'm thinking that we should split up. A group this big can't exactly sneak around. Especially if they're expecting us." David suggests, and the rest of us nod.
"Eleanor's in there. I'm going after her." Tripp says, and no one dare objects.
Conrad even nods. "I'm coming with you."
"Lingard brought her to the hospital. That'd be your best bet." David tells the two men.
"Kate'll be in there, too, Javi. That's where you'll need to go to get her and Gabe. From there, bring her to my house. It's the one with the raven on the hitching post. We'll all meet up there, after I pay a little visit to Joan. Try to stay out of sight. They know who we are, and they'll be expecting us."
"Got it. We'll see you at your house." Javi responds to his brother as David and Max walk off to wherever they're meeting Joan. Tripp and Conrad move up to scout out where we should go.
"I'm with you, Javi. Let's go get Kate and Gabe." I say to him, and he gives a nod of confirmation.
"What about you, Clem?" he asks.
"I'm going after AJ… and then I'm getting the hell out of Richmond." she responds as she dangles a set of keys. The keys to the truck. How she got those, I'll never know. But I'm not gonna bother asking.
"I guess I do owe you a vehicle…" Jav concedes to her, and she smiles, but then it turns to a frown of concern.
"Keep an eye on David. He may seem like he's playing nice, but I'd still watch your back." She warns him.
Javi looks at her, questioning, but before he can respond, she runs off, in search of AJ. Before long, Tripp and Conrad come back. Tripp, a determined look on his face, lays out a plan for us.
"So David says to hang a right up at the corner. It seems clear so far. After that right, we'll be there."
"Let's move." Javi steps up and takes point, slowly moving up before crouching behind an old taxi cab. We all do the same as voices come from down the road.
"So you know Javier Garcia? That guy that played shortstop for Baltimore?"
"That Javier Garcia? That's the guy who we're looking for?"
"Yeah. That Javier Garcia. Anyway, it sounds like some paranoia bullshit. The guy's a fucking ballplayer." I look up to see the two men conversing right in front of the hospital. There's no going around them. We can't shoot them down, either. So we need a distraction.
Lying right beneath the back tire, a baseball sized rock, just laying there. Convenient. I hand the rock to Javi. "How's your throwing arm, shortstop?"
Without a word, he takes the rock and throws it at a nearby transformer. It falls t the ground with a loud crash, sparks flying everywhere.
"Holy shit!" One of the men yells out.
"Jesus, man. You couldn't have gone for a window or something?" Tripp asks Javi.
"Hey, it did the trick." I point out. The men are gone. They must've went to get someone to handle the transformer. So now there's no one guarding the hospital.
The four of us run down the road, to the building the men were guarding just then, quickly going through a set of double doors. Javi, knowing where Kate is, leads the way down several long corridors, before stopping at a room on the right. He peeks inside, before turning back to Conrad and Tripp.
"You guys find Elle. Tell her we're moving Kate."
"Sounds good. We'll meet you back here."
With that, Tripp and Conrad walk further down the hall, looking for Eleanor, leaving me and Javi. The two of us walk in, to see Kate resting on a bed, and Gabe sitting in a chair, looking out the window. He's the first to notice us.
"Javi! Ian!" He rushes over to give his uncle a hug as Kate sits up. "We thought you were… I was super worried."
"Hey…" I say as I walk over to Kate, whose face brightens.
"Hey…" She says back to me with a smile as she pulls me in for a hug. "We thought you were gone. Kicked out. Dead. We didn't know."
"Dead?" I grin as the hug dissolves. "You can't kill me."
"They didn't hurt you, did they?" Javi asks the two of them. Neither of them say a word, they just shake their heads.
"They told us you were denied entry. What does that mean?" Kate asks us.
I look her dead in the eyes. "It's true. They didn't let us in. We're on borrowed time right now. And we don't have a lot of it. This place, the people who run it, they're ruthless."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, Prescott, that wasn't the first attack they've done. Plenty of other communities are being raided by these people, all in secret operations. This place is built on the blood of others. All this medicine Lingard's been giving you, I'd bet the house they took it from someone else by force."
"What the fuck…"
"We've gotta move." Javi tells Kate and Gabe. "Ian's right. We've got no time."
"What about my dad?" Gabe asks.
"We're meeting him at his place, buddy. Don't worry." Javi explains to his nephew.
"Excuse me?" Kate interjects.
"David has a house in town, Kate. We're gonna meet with him there, and then talk future planning."
"Wait, Ian, Javi, this woman, Joan, came by. I felt like she was sizing me up. It was creepy. She implied David was in trouble, like he was no longer in charge. She kept saying Gabe and I didn't need to worry, but it only made me worry more. I got a bad feeling from her."
"Kate… Joan was calling the shots on the raids. She was behind Prescott. And… she may have been calling the shots on the ambush in the scrapyard. She manipulated some of David's men to do terrible things. You cannot trust her." I tell her, to her shock.
"She was behind all this?"
"Yes. And David's confronting her about it as we speak."
"He's what?"
"There's going to be a major power struggle here. It's gonna get messy. But we need to get you to David's house for the time being. We'll keep you safe."
"Ian… we can't stay here. This is not our fight. We already lost Mari because of these people. Now, this whole place is going to become a fucking war zone."
I sigh, looking out the window. "Look, I want to keep you all safe. That's the one thing I want right now."
"Then you know we can't get involved!" She angrily cuts me off.
"We're already too deep in this to back out, now. David's gonna need our help with this. But we're gonna make it right." I tell her.
"What's going on?" Eleanor's voice cuts us off. "Tripp said we have to move to David's house."
"We're not doing that." Kate rejects our plan. "We're getting the fuck out of Richmond before it's too late."
"Getting out? You shouldn't even be sitting up. You are in no condition to travel."
"Eleanor, we need to get out of Richmond before fucking David gets us killed in this Civil War he's about to start." Kate argues.
"Eleanor's right. We need to go to David's house."
"Ian!"
"No, Kate. She's right. You were within an inch of your life the other day, with a bullet in your gut. If we can keep you in a safe spot where Eleanor can keep taking care of you, then that's what we need to do. It's the only option we've got now, with your condition."
Kate sighs. "Fine. We'll go to David's. But this is a terrible idea. I still think we need to get the fuck out of here."
"I've got a gun in the room they gave me. Sounds like we might need it." Eleanor remarks as I help Kate up. She and Tripp walk out, presumably to where Eleanor is staying at.
Kate uses me for support as we walk out of the hospital, down the road to David's house, cutting through alleyways and back streets to avoid being seen.
"You should know this is the sorta thing David lives for." Kate warns me. "A brawl. When we were married, the only times I ever saw him truly happy was when he was talking about being at war. When the world went to shit? That was probably the best day of his life. He gets to live life on the front line. It's probably like Christmas every morning for him."
"Maybe that's a good thing. Maybe he'll be more useful if he knows how to handle these sorta things."
She frowns and looks forward. "Just because he likes it doesn't mean he's good at it."
"That's a fair point." I reply as the house comes into view. The raven on the hitching post is a dead giveaway. Outside, the bald black woman that originally kicked us out sits on the front doorstep, looking impatiently out at us.
"Took your damn time."
"Nice to see you, too, Ava." Javier sarcastically replies. She walks up to us, nudging Javi.
"Come on. We have to go."
"Wait…" Javi questions her. "David told us to come here."
"He's talking to the others right now." She informs us. "Trust me… Shit's about to fly. He's gonna need our gotta get on the move."
Javi sends her anther confused look. "But what exactly can I do? They've already kicked me out once. They'll just kick me out again."
"You'll have to just use your words. And if that doesn't work, you use your gun."
I place my hand on Javi's shoulder. "I'll keep them safe. Go talk to Joan and everyone else. Don't worry about it."
As the two of them walk off, he turns back to us, for one last thing.
"Stay safe. If this shit is really going to hit the fan, then it's gonna get messy really quick. Try not to get yourselves shot while I'm away, alright?"
I give him a smile and a nod. "I should say the same for you. You're the one getting into the thick of it, here."
He simply grins back to me. "You're telling me."
He and Ava finally walk off as the last three of us walk inside David's house. For a higher-up here, it seems like a pretty quaint house. But, it's good enough for us right now. Gabe leads us up a flight of stairs, and through a door into a bedroom, probably a guest room. I walk Kate over to the bed, setting her down on the gray bedspread. I set down my gun on the nightstand and collapse into a chair. Finally, an opportunity to relax.
"So… what now?" Gabs asks me, sitting at the foot of the bed where his stepmother rests.
"Now… we wait. For Eleanor, for Javi, for David, for Ava, anyone really." I rummage through some old magazines sitting on the nightstand, before an April 2010 edition of ESPN: The Magazine catches my eye. On the cover, Jimmy Clausen, a quarterback from Notre Dame that was in my draft class. He went to Carolina, I think, so I would've gotten to play him twice a year, if I made the Falcons' final roster. I open the magazine and start thinking about what could've been.
NFL Draft 2010: The best nights of my life. Seeing my dream pan out, with my dream woman, all I had ever wanted, and yet here I am, staring at a column by Stuart Scott, feeling as though life is mocking me. It's a shitty feeling. But four years have gone by, so I can't even feel bad for myself. I've done what I could with the cards I've been dealt. Here I am, former NFL prospect now preparing for a Civil War in which we are both outnumbered and outgunned.
Even despite this, I feel happy. I can't begin to explain why, but I feel good. Somehow, with all this shit going on, I can just tell that it's going to be alright. Maybe it's cause I have feelings for Kate, maybe it's cause I know I have pretty much nothing to lose. In all the confusion and commotion that's going on, though, my sights couldn't be clearer. Avenge Wellington, Avenge Prescott, Avenge Mariana, at all costs.
"Ian…" I hear Kate to the left of me. I turn to see her staring back at me, kinda concerned.
"Yeah?"
"David, he's… He's changed since I had last seen him, four years ago. He's not the man I fell in love with. He's just… he's lost his mind. And I'm not sure I can trust him anymore."
I raise an eyebrow. "What do you mean by that?"
"I mean, David is dangerous. And I don't trust him to accomplish what he's trying to without getting us all killed. I still think we should've left, but I see your point that we're too into this as is. But I don't feel comfortable having David take charge. I just don't."
"So what do you think we should do about it?"
"Well for starters, I want to get the hell out of this house. I get a really bad feeling from this place. I think we should move to Eleanor's. I'd feel better off."
I smile to her. "I'll see what I can do. I'll talk to Eleanor when she gets back. But you should get comfortable for right now. I can't promise anything. This might be our best option for right now."
Downstairs, I hear the door open, and a few people walk in.
The first voice I hear, Eleanor's, calls out to us. "Hello? Kate? Ian? Javi? Gabe? Anyone?"
I walk downstairs to see Eleanor, Tripp, and Conrad, sitting down, I suppose waiting for us.
"You're here." Tripp says as he's the first to notice me. "What about the others?"
"Kate's resting upstairs. Gabe's… somewhere. And Javi is with David. They're trying to settle this before it becomes a full on warzone here. But I'm telling you guys right now, this shit's about to get bloody." I explain to the three of them.
"Well what can we fuckin' do? We've got a couple handguns, they've got automatic rifles and explosives. Not to mention we're outnumbered like a hundred to one." Tripp asks of me.
"David's trying to rally some support from his people. But that's another thing. Kate doesn't trust him. She thinks he's lost his mind, and he's gonna get us all killed."
"Shit, man. And she's his wife. What do you think?" Conrad asks.
I give him an unsure look back. "I don't really trust anyone here. After what happened with Prescott and Wellington, I have a hard time trusting this place. Who knows what else these people are hiding? I've dealt with cannibals, methhead bandits, and all sorts of psychopaths, but this is something else. Can't be too careful with this."
"Well, I ask again, what can we do here? Sounds like this is a great way for us to get killed."
"Kate wants to get out of here before it's too late. But I think it is too late for that. I think we're already too deep in this. I think, at least, we could move her to a better place. If she's not trusting David, then something could seriously be up here."
"I've got a place in town we can move her to." Eleanor volunteers. "It's only a couple blocks away, and we can stay there until we figure out what to do."
"Perfect. I'll let her know."
I go back upstairs to see Kate sitting up in bed, and Gabe reading the magazine I was looking at earlier, looking kinda fascinated about something.
"Good news, Kate." I announce to her. "Eleanor's got a place and she said we can move you there. We should get going while we still can."
"Awesome. Thank you." She says back to me as I walk towards her bed, helping her up and out of it.
"But what about my dad?" Gabe whines once again as Kate and I start walking downstairs.
"One thing at a time, Gabe. Let's get Kate to Eleanor's place before we decide what to do next."
"Shit… Do you think he's ok?"
"I don't know. He's talking with Joan and the others. We can't know for sure."
I help Kate downstairs, and Eleanor walks up to us to check on Kate.
"How're you feeling? Any new pain or anything?"
"I'm fine… Can we get to your new place?"
"Sure. Let's go."
A few blocks away, towards the outskirts of town, Eleanor leads us to an apartment building, and her apartment, on the fourth floor, seems like a great spot to hold out at until this shit blows over or blows up. It's got a view of the town square, and it's also relatively secluded.
The door creaks open and Ava walks in, looking mildly surprised.
"I thought I saw you guys come here. David's house wasn't good enough?" She sarcastically asks us.
"Well, since David's on everybody's shit list here, we thought it might be a safer option if we move her to a less low-key spot."
"That's smart. Cause David is really on Joan's shit list now." She tells us, and Gabe looks at her with shock.
"What? What happened? Is my dad ok?"
"I don't know. But he and Javi confronted Joan about the raiding. So Joan had the two of them thrown in a cell. I don't know what's going on now, but I assume that's where they are." Ava explains to us, and Gabe fiercely looks back at her.
"We've gotta get them out. What if they get killed? We have to help them."
"Gabe," I remind him. "Most of us aren't even supposed to be here. If we get spotted, we're fucked. We can't just be wandering the streets looking for them. We do that, we get gunned down or thrown in a cell ourselves."
"Well we can't just let them fucking rot in a cell!" The young teen fires back at me. I'm taken aback by his response. I wasn't expecting something so… fiery. But, passion doesn't necessarily make things right. I still stand by what I said. We can't go out looking. Unless…
"I can take the boy out." Ava proposes. "I can show him where they're being held. But that's all I can do. I can't help you break them out. Joan still thinks I'm on her side with all this shit, and I can't blow that. But if you can think of something, all the power to you, kid."
"Alright… Let's go." He adamantly replies with fire in his eyes. Looks like the kid's starting to toughen up a bit, and this gets a bit of a smile out of me. Ava leads him out the door, and soon enough, the two of them are off to rescue Javi and David.
"Elle, I've been thinking long and hard about this and... I really think we should be… a thing." Tripp admits to Eleanor from the other room, and the sigh I hear come from Eleanor tells us everything we need to know.
"I'm sorry, Tripp. I don't know if I feel like that. That way. I just don't know."
A couple hours have passed, and tensions inside have slowly been rising. But, getting to sit back on a couch and read some old magazines to pass the time while Kate lightly sleeps on me hasn't been the worst thing to happen to me. In reality, everything feels normal right now, except, you know, the zombie apocalypse and the bloodbath that's about to break out.
Tripp revealing his true feelings to Eleanor doesn't exactly help things either, but with everything that's about to go down, it hardly even matters. This may not have been the time or place, but if he could get it off his chest now, I guess he got it off his chest.
Nonetheless, the two continue to talk/bicker as the door opens, and Javi and Gabe walk through, Javi a little roughed up, probably from Joan's men, but the two of them look alright overall.
Kate's the first to react, running to the door and hugging her brother in law. But their embrace is overshadowed by the further bickering from Tripp and Eleanor, Tripp explaining why we need to get out, but Eleanor insists that she needs to stay and help. I respect the hell out of Eleanor for doing this, but I'm not sure it's worth it. But one thing I am sure about? I am not getting in between them right now. They're going at each other and I am not about to try anything to dissolve that.
But once the two of them see Javi, things lighten up. Their expressions change almost immediately, Tripp saying something first.
"Oh. Hey Javi. Welcome back. You guys alright?"
"Yeah…" He replies, kinda awkwardly. "We're fine. Are you guys?"
"Just peachy. What the hell is going on here?" Eleanor asks, apparently not familiar with our situation.
"You can't trust Joan," Javi answers. "She's trying to remove David from power by pinning murders on him. It's complete bullshit."
"I told you we couldn't trust them." Tripp quips.
"And I told you we should've gotten the hell out of here when we had the chance." Kate adds. "I'm sorry about what's happening to David, but we have to get out of here before we get killed in a fight we have no business being in."
"No. We can't. There's too much unfinished business here. I'm sorry. We can't leave just yet."
Kate sighs. "Fuck…"
"And besides. Have you guys even taken a look outside?" Eleanor asks the rest of us. We look at each other, confused, before turning back to her and shaking our heads. "Well go look for yourselves."
Kate and I walk over to the back window, and I open the blinds to the sight before us.
"Oh shit…" Comes out of my mouth. So many walkers, flooding the streets, as far as the eye can see. We're stuck here.
"Even if we did get David free, you're not gonna be able to go anywhere." Eleanor reminds us.
"Jesus…" Kate mutters. "We should've gotten out of here while we had the chance."
"And then we run into that herd earlier." I remind her. "At least here, we have some sort of security. If we went out there, we have no sort of security, and no way to deal with that many walkers."
She scoffs. "I'd rather take my chances out there than in here."
"Then you're an idiot." Ava says as she appears behind us. "Be realistic. You wouldn't have lasted eight seconds out there. You'd've been torn to shreds by those things."
Tripp groans. "Seems like we're in trouble inside here and outside. I, for one, would feel a whole lot safer with a few more guns to protect myself."
"Amen to that, brother. We're not gonna be able to do shit if they've got assault rifles and we're working with a couple handguns." I agree, and he shoots me a nod.
"Is that really the smartest move to make right now? Like, seriously? That's crazy. What're you going to do? Break into their armory? Steal all their guns?"
"Actually, that's exactly what we could do." Ava suggests to the rest of us. "I can get you in there, and you guys can get the guns, and get back here. It should probably be a small group, just two or three of you."
"Sounds like a plan." Javi confirms.
"So who's going?" I ask. Gabe raises his hand in an instant. Kid's eager to prove himself. I like it.
Me, Javi, Gabe, and Tripp walk toward the door. Before Kate taps me on the shoulder. As I turn around, I'm greeted with a passionate kiss on the lips, kinda like the junkyard kiss, except she goes in for it, not me.
"Good Luck." She whispers as we walk out into the hall. I can't help but keep a goofy smile on my face. Dear God, I think I'm falling for her.
"Look, Javi, I don't know if you heard earlier, but I kinda fucked it up with Eleanor." Tripp quietly admits as we walk out.
"We can talk on the way."
"Yeah look, I don't think I can leave with things like this between me and her. It wouldn't be right."
"Tripp, no offense, but you're being an idiot. This is not the time for this."
"You don't get it, man! You just don't. I just shouldn't have pushed it with her like I did. It wasn't fair to her. There was just way too much going on, you know?"
"Javi, come on!" Gabe urges us to leave, but Tripp tells the kid otherwise.
"Sorry kid, just another minute. I'm sorry, Javi. I just don't know what to do."
"Everyone's just a little overwhelmed with everything." I assure him. "Don't worry about it. You just gotta wait for the right time with this. Maybe she'll even come around."
Tripp sighs with a dejected look on his face. "Uh-huh. Right… Well good luck out there. I'm gonna talk things over with Eleanor and watch over things here. Don't y'all worry, I won't let anything happen to anyone here."
"Thank you, Tripp." Javi thanks our friend as Tripp closes the door while Gabe waits impatiently with Ava down the hall.
"Shall we?" She asks us. With a determined look on my face, I nod.
"Let's do this."
So, if you can't tell, I decided to go back to one a week with this from now until the conclusion of this story. With school, rugby, and other things i have going on, doing two chapters of this a week while maintaining quality writing is just not realistic. I value quality over quantity with this, so I won't push out two chapters a week to meet this quota if the chapters aren't going to be up to my standards. Hopefully you guys understand. Anyways, hope you've enjoyed. Things start to get interesting next week :]