8:15 PM
The Picnic Pavilion
Tiki torchers flickered at the four corners of the picnic pavilion in the distance. Carol could hear the sound of music as they drew near. People lined the benches of three of the four tables, though the fiddler was standing next to the guitar player, who sat on a stool. A man leaned back against one of the corner posts of the pavilion as he lightly bounced a swaddled baby in his arms. Two boys and a girl, who looked to be between the ages of six and ten, chased fireflies in the nearby grass. A sleepy toddler straddled his mother on one of the benches, his cheek pressed to her breast as he rubbed at one of his eyes with a closed fist.
"Here they are," Carlton announced when Carol's group drew near, and the music abruptly stopped. Carlton stood from his table and pointed to them one by one. "That's Carol, Daryl, Ozzy, and Dianne."
Carol was halfway through nodding a greeting to the group when everyone stood and began to clap. The guitar player and fiddler strummed a series of celebratory chords. A man put two fingers in his mouth and whistled. They settled down when the baby started crying. The mother took it from the father's arms and plopped it on her breast beneath a nursing blanket.
An olive-complexioned woman with beautiful black hair that fell in tendrils across her chest walked toward them. She wore a crossbow on her back. "We all want to thank you for overthrowing those assholes and returning what you could of our things. I'm Cassie."
The cheering had drawn a walker to the fence line. It lurched forward, growling, and impaled itself on a pike. Cassie swung her bow off her back, swiveled, and sent a bolt soaring between the shoulders of two people, under the roof of the picnic pavilion, and straight into the walker. The creature slumped on the pike.
"Nice shot!" Daryl exclaimed.
Carol didn't think it was a particularly nice shot. Anybody should be able to make that shot. She could easily have made that shot. Well, probably not with a crossbow, because she didn't happen to use a crossbow, but what was so nice about the shot?
Cassie reloaded her bow and then set it on her back again. "Carlton, go peel that thing off and throw it in the burn ditch. And recover my bolt."
Carlton nodded and headed for the fence.
"We better tone it down a notch," Cassie told her people, and the fiddler and guitar player leaned their instruments against the stool and squeezed in at one of the tables instead. Cassie nodded to the empty table. "Have a seat, friends."
Carol found herself sitting next to Daryl on one side of the table and across from Cassie, Ozzy, and Dianne on the other.
"George," Cassie called to the man who had held the baby earlier. "Get the conquerors some wine!"
George plucked a bottle of wine from a basket.
"I'm heading back." George's wife nodded to the baby nursing beneath the blanket. "She'll be out after this, and I'm exhausted. You take your time, though. Have fun."
George kissed her cheek. "I'll take her after her morning feeding, so you can sleep in."
Someone slapped down a pewter goblet before Carol. Around the stem curled a red ceramic dragon, its wings spreading wide at the side of the cup. Daryl's was also pewter and carved with Celtic designs. Ozzy and Dianne received gold goblets ornamented with faux rubies and emeralds. Everyone else had similarly ornate wine cups within reach.
"We looted the Medieval Times in Maryland," Cassie explained. "Toward the start."
As George poured some wine into Ozzy's goblet, the Highwayman asked, "I take it George was not your monk's name?"
"It was Cyril. My real name is Georgios, but everyone calls me George." He looked at Ozzy curiously. "Is it true you're the abbot's son?"
"Yes," Ozzy answered warily.
"I'm so sorry."
Ozzy chuckled.
George began pouring Dianne's cup next.
"The Redeemers didn't take your wine?" Carol asked. She assumed they'd rescued the very last bottle.
"They took all of the communion wine in the chapel," George answered as he walked around the table to pour for her. "But they never discovered our cellar. The door is under a rug in the banquet hall." He turned the bottle as he finished off her pour. "We had 2,952 bottles down there when the world collapsed."
Ozzy whistled.
"We've frunk quite a bit of it," Cassie said, "but we aslo looted a bunch more from the Medieval Times and from a winery. And the monks used to make wine."
George motioned with the bottle to the vineyards on the other side of camp. "They'll make more, when we run out, but for now we eat the grapes." He finished a generous pour for Daryl, swigged the last ounce straight from the bottle, and set it back in the picnic basket. Then he picked up his own goblet from another table and strolled over toward theirs. He took a seat next to Carol.
Cassie looked across the table at Daryl. Carol didn't like the way her dark green eyes were roaming him, as if she were trying to size up how good he might be in bed. "Jeremy said you're the one who had the crossbow on you?"
"Yeah," Daryl replied.
"Horton Scout HD 125."
Daryl perked up at this detail. "Yeah. Where is it?"
"In a safe place," she assured him. "We'll give it back to you in the morning. It's a good choice. I used to have one of those myself. I lost it near the start, but now I still have the other three." She patted the bow on your back. "My favorite is the CenterPoint. Thanks for bringing them all back to me."
She said that as if Daryl had done it alone.
"All three of them bows were yours?"
Carol couldn't tell if Daryl was impressed or jealous. Maybe a little of both.
"I've never been much for hunting with firearms," Cassie replied. "There's less sport in it, somehow, don't you think?"
"Yeah, I hear ya."
"You must be an excellent hunter. I took the privilege of looking over your bow. It's definitely had some good use, but it's also very well maintained. I take it you have a press back home?"
"Looted one, yeah."
Carol wanted to drape her arm around Daryl's shoulders, but she knew it would be a petty, possessive move, and she resisted the urge. Every muscle in her body tightened, however, when Cassie reached across the table and actually took her husband's hand.
"Is that a tattoo on your finger?" The pretty woman pulled Daryl's hand closer.
Daryl looked somewhat uncomfortable but allowed Cassie to examine his ring finger. The huntress ran the tip of her finger along the letters one by one, spelling out loud "C-A-R-O-. . . Oh." She immediately let go of his hand.
Daryl dragged his arm back and put both hands beneath the table.
The woman looked from Carol to Daryl. "You two are married?"
"Carol's m'wife."
"I didn't realize."
"Clearly." Carol let the word slip before she could stop herself.
Cassie smiled apologetically. "Can't fault a girl for trying. I live in a camp full of monks, and I'm related by blood to one-third of the male laity." She nodded her head to a table behind herself. "Two brothers and two cousins."
"Well, I'm not married!" Ozzy announced.
Cassie chuckled. "No? Did your father's marriage turn you off of the idea? I can't imagine he was much of a husband."
Ozzy gritted his teeth for a moment and then relaxed his jaw. "I can fault my father for a lot of things, but failing to love my mother is definitely not one of them. He adored her while she was alive. He always supported her in her passions."
"Really?" Cassie asked doubtfully.
Ozzy shrugged. "But once she was dead, it was like he wanted to put a sea between himself and his memory of her."
"It happens," said George. "More often than you'd think. Seven of the monks are widowers."
A light cut through the trees near the fence line. Cassie stood abruptly and swiveled her bow from her back. Men and women reached for the knives at their hips. So did Carol, instinctively, but she hadn't yet been returned hers. The purr of an engine drifted through the woods, and then the light stopped at the gate. Everyone relaxed their grips on their hilts as Carlton, who was near the gate, swung it open. A motorcycle with a sidecar full of bags and boxes and cans pulled inside and stopped next to the flat-bed truck.
The man who dismounted and strode toward the picnic pavilion wore black robes but no hat. A silver-sheathed cutlass rode his back. The two little boys who had been chasing fireflies ran to him, shouting, "Daddy! Daddy!" He got down on his haunches, gave them each a hug, and then slipped a hand inside his robes and pulled out three candy canes. He gave one to each of them and then walked on to give one to the little girl they'd been playing with. Once under the picnic pavilion, he was greeted with a kiss from a woman. He pulled back from her and said, "We found sixteen boxes of powdered milk. And look what I got!" He turned his hip toward her to show the handgun holstered to a brown leather gun belt around his waist.
"Boys and their toys," the woman murmured, and the man kissed her again.
Carol blinked.
"I sense your confusion," said Cassie with a light smirk. "Father Nikolas is a priest, but not a monk. The priests don't have to be celibate if they're already married before they become priests. Father Nikolas eats supper at the monks' table, joins them for vespers and compline services, and serves the Eucharist on Sundays, but otherwise, he hangs with the laity. He breakfasts with us, works the fields with us, and parties with us."
An anxious-looking woman now approached the priest. "Where's Stefanos? Why isn't he with you?"
"He's safe," the priest replied. "He's alive."
"Where is he?" she asked, her voice high with worry.
The priest swallowed hard. He looked at the tips of his black shoes. "We…uh…we thought to loot the women's monastery in West Virginia." He looked up at her. "We thought they'd have food or wine in the cellars. But there was a camp there. Like ours. Seven of the nuns survived the Second Fall. And they'd taken in fifteen men, women and children. It was a miracle, Cynthia. Stefanos found his wife and child there. Alive."
The woman gasped and covered her mouth with her hand.
The priest put a hand on her shoulder. "I'm sorry. But it was a miracle. He stayed with them there."
The woman shook her head. "And he didn't even…Not even a goodbye?"
The priest slid his hand from her shoulder, reached into his robe, and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. "He wrote you this."
She grabbed the paper, choked, and began running toward the dormitory. The priest's wife followed her, and Father Nikolas sighed.
"Think Stefano will tell his wife about her?" a man asked.
"I advised him not to," the priest replied. "He thought she was dead. It wasn't adultery in his heart. He's returned to his vows. He'll dedicate himself to them, to his wife, to his child. It could only bring his wife pain to know. There's no point in it."
"Except honesty," Carol said.
The priest seemed to notice the newcomers for the first time. "Who is this woman, Cassie?" He waved a hand toward the table. "And the other three?"
Cassie told him about the overthrow of the Redeemers and the return of their goods. "Didn't you notice the truck when you came in?"
"I thought you'd found another." He smiled. "Two miracles in one week!"
"Well that first one wasn't much of a miracle to Cynthia," one of the women grumbled.
"Or to us," a man said. "Stefanos was our best supply runner."
"What am I?" the priest asked. "Chopped liver?"
Someone put a goblet of wine in the priest's hand, and he sipped and then sat down at the table on the side of Ozzy, Dianne, and Cassie, scooching Cassie over. "You have communities?" he asked Carol, as if he thought she was in charge. "Plural?"
"Daryl and I, we're…from out of town." She glanced at Dianne, unwilling to divulge any details on the Coalition's behalf.
"We have an alliance of several communities throughout Virginia," Dianne told him.
"Have you talked trade?" the priest murmured to Cassie.
"Not yet. I was getting to it."
Father Nikolas looked over Cassie and Ozzy to Dianne. "Would you consider establishing trade? We need more guns and ammo. Your people seem to have plenty, if you overthrew the Redeemers. We have fruit preserves, pickled vegetables. Wine. Walnuts. Rechargeable batteries. We make electricity to recharge them." He gestured toward the dead mill in the distance, from which the faint hum of gnashing drifted.
"I can't speak for any other community," Dianne said, "but I think our king would agree to trading with you."
"Your king?" Father Nikolas asked.
"He used to have a pet tiger," Ozzy said.
The priest laughed. "All right. I'm properly intimidated."
"I'm not joking," Ozzy told him. "My community might trade with you, too."
"I was thinking a monthly trade meeting," Cassie said. "Here. Because I'm guessing you won't reveal the location of your camps."
"A monthly meeting could work," Dianne said.
"You and Carlton will need to run it by the abbot," Cassie told the priest, "since he won't talk to me."
The priest nodded.
"He doesn't accept you as their leader?" Carol asked. "Because you're a woman?"
"Not quite. He knows I'm their leader, but he doesn't talk to me directly because my tits might be too much temptation."
The priest flushed, the ex-monk chuckled, and Ozzy said, "Well, in your case, he may have a point."
Cassie shot him a glance that was slightly more amused than irritated. Carlton, who had recently rejoined them and was standing near the second table, said, "The abbot never considers how much of a temptation my fine ass might be!"
Laughter roared through the pavilion.
"And a fine ass it is, too," said a woman sitting at the table, and she reached over and slapped it.
"Carlton makes a fair point," George said. "At least six of my former brothers are gay."
"Six?" Dianne asked. "My friend Aaron would be in hog heaven here."
"Celibate, though," George clarified.
The priest, his face slightly red, rose. "I better get my boys settled in bed." He walked from the picnic table, calling, "Jonas, Michalas, bedtime, boys!"
"Awwwwwww!" they complained but trudged after their father.
"What did your father do," Cassie asked Ozzy, "before he was a monk?"
"What does it matter? He died to all that long ago. Died to his family."
"You sound a bit bitter about that."
"Would you like it if you were twenty, and motherless, and your father left you with your eighteen-year-old sister to vanish into a monastery?"
"My father did," Cassie replied. "Though I was twenty-one at the time. And my brothers were older."
"Your father is here?" Ozzy asked with surprise.
"No. He died at the start of the Second Fall. My brothers and cousins and I came here to check on him, and he was already buried."
"But you're alive," Ozzy said. "And I'm alive. We're alive." He smiled at her. "Dance with me."
She chuckled. "There's no music anymore."
"We can make our own."
"Oh, all right."
Ozzy smiled uncertainly. He was clearly expecting to be shot down. "Really?"
Cassie turned to the fiddle player and the guitarist. "Let's have some music again!" Then she called to another man, "Seth, tend the fence, please, in case we draw more. Let us know if it gets to be too many?"
"Hector's in the blind already with a shotgun," he replied.
"Well we don't want to be firing off a shotgun if we don't have to!"
"Fine," muttered Seth as he drew his knife and headed for the fence.
Ozzy stood and held his hand out to Cassie. They weren't the only couple to head to the grassy dance floor. George cajoled Dianne into dancing. "Just so you know upfront-I do have a steady boyfriend in our coalition," she said.
"Well, I have a wife."
"Oh, that's right." Dianne followed him to the field where the others had already begun dancing.
"You ain't gonna make me dance, are ya?" Daryl asked.
"No," Carol told him, and leaned over and kissed his cheek. "But I am going to make you walk me back to the dormitory."
"Already? Thought ya liked this social shit."
She leaned close and whispered in his ear, "I'm horny."
Daryl seized his goblet of wine, downed the rest of it, and slammed it down on the picnic table, which he almost toppled with how abruptly he stood up. Carol laughed as he seized her hand and began dragging her back toward the dorm.
When they were in Carol's cell, Daryl kicked the door closed and shed his vest and muscle shirt while Carol lit the oil lamp on the writing desk. She turned from the desk and tore at his belt as she kissed him. The belt jangled and their tongues tangled as she popped his button free, jerked down his zipper, and pushed his pants and boxers to his knees. She tore free of his mouth only long enough to whip her shirt off over her head and shed her own pants and panties. He watched her shimmy out of them with hungry eyes. "Leave the bra on," he demanded.
The bed was impossibly small, so she urged him to sit down in the wooden chair that was situated against the wall between the desk and the bed.
She seized the back of the chair with both hands, straddled him, and eased herself down on his erection with a groan.
"Fuck, yes, Miss Murphy. You are horny." He gripped her by the hips tightly and thrust up, which made her tilt back her head and moan. She jerked her hips in a hard circle.
Halfway through their thrusting and panting, the chair snapped, and they tumbled to the ground. Daryl kicked his pants the rest of the way off his legs, rolled her onto her back on the woven rug, and entered her again, with a satisfied grunt. He popped the front clasp of her bra free, cupped a breast, and squeezed gently. Then he pinched her nipple.
Carol gasped. "I thought you wanted me to leave it on."
"So I could take it off," he growled. He pinched her other nipple, and she jerked up against him. "You want it bad, don't you, Miss Murphy?"
She wrapped her naked legs around his waist and demanded, "Hard."
He gave her what she wanted. It was quick and hungry from there, and as much as they tried to muffle their cries of pleasure against each other's flesh, they seeped out. Fortunately, Daryl's empty room was on one side of Carol's cell, and Ozzy's empty room was on the other.
When Daryl rolled off her, he hissed in pain, reached beneath his back, and pulled out a broken, splintered leg of the chair. After tossing it aside, he rolled on his side with his back toward her. "It scrape me up?"
She ran her fingertips over the fresh scratches on his back. "A little. Unless I did that with my fingernails."
He grabbed another piece of the chair and pushed it aside before rolling back. "Ain't no room to cuddle," he said.
"Maybe we could sit up in the bed?" she suggested.
They got partially dressed first. Daryl pulled on his boxers, and Carol fished a pair of athletic shorts and t-shirt out of her pack beneath the bed. They situated themselves in the narrow bed with Daryl sitting up with his back against the wall and Carol between his legs. He wrapped his arms around her from behind, and she leaned back against his chest before running her fingertip over the tattoo on his ring finger.
He nuzzled her neck and breathed in her scent. "Hell made you so horny all of the sudden?"
She loved the sound of his voice right at her ear, low and gravely, and his breath familiar and warm. "I don't know."
"C'mon. Tell me. So I can do it again sometime."
She chuckled. "I think Cassie was coming onto you."
"That's what made ya horny?"
"No. But it made me realize I've got a really good thing. And that made me horny."
"See. Now you know I know what a damn good thing I got, since I'm horny all the time."
She smiled. "I love you, Daryl."
He bent his forehead and rested it against the top of her head. "Love ya, too," he murmured. His head slowly slumped. She shifted so she could rest her head on his shoulder, and then she drifted off to sleep, too.
They were startled awake an hour later by something slamming against the wall that divided them from Ozzy's room.
"The fuck?" Daryl murmured.
The next slam! was followed by a low, feminine moan. Then there was another slam! and a masculine grunt.
Daryl put one foot down on the floor and scooted partially off the bed, away from the wall, as it was slammed again from the other side.
Ozzy's voice penetrated the wall between them-You like that?
Then a woman's voice-Shhhh! Ohhhhh!
Another Slam!
Do you?
God yes. Oh, God...Shh!
The wall rattled with the next Slam!
This went on for about another minute before there were strangled-cries followed by whimpering followed by shushing followed by laughing followed by silence, or what was at least, mercifully, silence on this side of the wall.
"Ozzy must be one hell of a dancer," Daryl muttered, and Carol covered her laugh with a hand.
She looked over at the writing desk, where the oil lamp had almost burned itself out. "Think it was the desk slamming against the wall?"
"Damn, why didn't I think of that?" Daryl muttered. "There's room for that! Could of bent you over that. Wouldn't of broken the damn chair."
"You might have punched a hole in the wall though. I thought they were going to for a second there."
"Guess Cassie's over me," Daryl said.
Carol turned and smacked him playfully on the shoulder. "Stop."
He chuckled. "Poor Dianne's the only one not get any tonight."
"Well, good for Gavin she's not." Carol got out of bed and turned off the oil lamp before it was completely burned out and all the oil used up. They dozed off again in their sitting position, but awoke to chanting in the hallway around midnight. Carol eased out of bed and opened the door a crack. The monks were making their way down the long hallway to the exit door, taper candles under glass holders in their hands. They were probably headed to the chapel for their midnight to four in the morning night vigil. A novice at the tail end of the train turned back, spied her, and smiled before forcing his lips into a stern line and turning forward again. Carol clicked the door shut.
This time, she couldn't get comfortable and fall back to sleep in the cramped bed. "It's really tight in here, Pookie."
"Oh, fine, I'll go next door." Daryl got out of the bed, jerked on his pants, and threw on his shirt. He picked up his vest and draped it over his arm. "I'd tell ya to put the chair under the door knob, but…"
Carol laughed. She rolled onto her side in the little bed as he shut the door behind himself.