Chapter 3: Kicking the Hornet's Nest

EDWARD

It was an overcast day with a fine mist cloaking the forest. The sun broke sporadically through the clouds, but those moments were few and far between.

The air was humid, making it a little hard to breathe and led to a haze of mosquitoes. The air was full of them, their high pitched buzzing a constant annoyance. It was futile to try to swat them away because there were a million more to take their place.

James and the guy who I'd learned was named Jasper led the way as we walked for nearly half a day before finding any kind of game. Even though most of the dead remained close to town, some were beginning to expand their hunting range looking for more prey. When the dead couldn't find humans, any warm-blooded animal would do to feed their unquenchable appetite.

James and Jasper set a brisk pace, every sense on alert as they passed through the trees. I tried to match their ability to slip just as silently through the forest, but I was keenly aware of every snap of twig or crunch of dirt under my feet. The longer we walked, the more overgrown the area became, making it more and more difficult to walk quietly.

For the most part, they ignored me, beyond a few snickers from James when I stumbled over a tree root.

At a certain point, Jasper slowed and then stopped, motioning for us to be quiet. James and I slowly crept forward to join him next to a large oak.

Sweat was streaming down my face, as I tried as quietly as possible to load a an arrow to my crossbow. Then, I peeked around the oak and saw that there was a partridge burrowing under leaves, probably protecting her eggs. I'd seen plenty in the woods behind my house.

I thought that Jasper or James would take the shot, but Jasper motioned me forward. As I passed, James hissed in my ear, "It's time to prove your worth, boy."

I'd never hunted animals before. The dead were easier targets than animals because they were slow and so focused on eating me that they never tried to run away from my shots.

I inhaled nervously, pretty sure that I wouldn't be able to make the shot. I'd assumed that I'd have to shoot a deer or some other large animal, not something as small as a bird. As I aimed, I took a deep breath, letting it go slowly. Then, I released, praying that it would hit its mark.

But it didn't.

The bolt struck the ground about three feet to the right of the bird, causing it to launch itself into the air in a flurry of feathers.

Jasper tsked in annoyance and James snorted.

"Well, well, well, Garrett's going to be interested to know that his new recruit is useless," James said with a smirk.

I glared at him. I didn't care what they really thought, but I was on edge around James. There was a gleam in his eyes that made me think that he wasn't quite sane.

We continued to hunt, but even though we found signs that bigger game like rabbits and deer had been in the area, we didn't find any.

"Shit, we can't go back with nothing. Garrett will tear us all new ones," Jasper muttered, dragging his hand across his face.

I vaguely knew the area of Bloomfield because my family used to get our fruit and vegetables from the farmers in the area. My parents had been on an organic kick, so they'd refused to buy any produce from groceries stores and instead went directly to the farmers.

So, I left the woods and followed a dirt road, heading towards a farm that I knew was nearby.

"Boy! Where are you going? You runnin' away? Afraid Garrett will kill you for being a waste of space?" James called from behind me.

I didn't understand what his problem was, but it was clear that he was baiting me and I wasn't going to give him the satisfaction.

We reached the Richardson farm after about twenty minutes.

"We can get stuff here," I grunted.

I passed by the farm house and headed towards the barn where I knew they kept crates for their produce.

I grabbed one and strode into the closest field.

It was amazing how quickly tilled earth and weeded rows had been taken over by invading plants. At first I didn't think that I'd find anything under the tangle of overgrown plants. However, then, I saw the familiar plants.

I shoved the crate into Jasper's arms and grabbed a rusting pitchfork to dig up potatoes. As James and Jasper watched, I filled two crates before standing up and wiping my hands on my jeans.

I looked at Jasper, expecting some sort of reaction, but he remained silent with an unreadable expression on his face.

We also found carrots and onions as well as a few pumpkins, but we wouldn't be able to carry it all back with us. So, we filled our backpacks with a selection of each and left the field planning to come back with others later.

It was clear that James wasn't happy with my find. As we walked through a field, James slashed angrily with his knife at the grass which was high enough to reach his chest.

For a person I'd just met, he seemed to have an extreme hatred for me.

After walking ahead of us for a while, he suddenly slowed down and kept pace with me.

"Where you from, boy?" James asked.

I grunted out a response, "nowhere… everywhere… none of your business…"

"Uh, huh," he said, nodding as if he didn't expect any other response.

"You survived on your own, huh? No family?" James continued, not seeming to be affected by my lack of response.

I looked straight ahead and tried my best to ignore him.

"There's no fuckin way you survived on your own if you can't even kill a partridge. Do you have a mommy or daddy waiting for you somewhere to come home so they can give you a bottle?" he sneered. "Come on. Tell me where they are and we'll bring them to our camp. One big happy family."

I glared at him with hatred, barely able to contain my anger.

"Oh, I see. Your family turned, didn't they? You're all alone because your mommy and daddy wanted to eat your brain, so you had to run away," he said with a smirk.

I swung towards him and shoved him hard enough to knock him into the tall grass.

Instead of being angry, James climbed to his feet and just smirked at me.

"I really touched a nerve. I bet you lost someone else too. A brother, maybe a sister…"

At the word sister, Anna flashed in my mind. Not the Anna I loved, but the one that wanted nothing more than my blood.

"Shut the fuck up!" I snarled.

"Ah, a sister. Did you lose a sissy, Ed? Ah, you poor boy. Do you need a tissue?" he taunted.

In a blind rage, I swung a fist at him and connected with his face.

James head snapped back, but unsurprisingly he was able to keep on his feet.

I vaguely heard someone talking to my left, but I was beyond listening.

I had to hit him again. I'd been trying to forget about what happened to my sister, preferring to remember her as my beautiful little girl, but he'd brought it all back to me.

James blows struck different parts of me—cheek, stomach, chest, but there was an ecstasy that came with rage. Letting go of my control was like becoming separated from my body and becoming nothing but a fire that burned everything else away.

Before I was able to let out all my pent up anger, Jasper wrapped his arms around me in restraint. Desperate to hurt James, I snapped my elbow back and slammed it into Jasper's stomach, causing him to let go and double over.

Then, I threw myself onto James again and began to pummel any part that I could reach.

But before I was able to cause any permanent damage, I felt something cold press against my temple.

"Enough."

I froze, not just because of the cold metal that dug into my skin, but also because of the tone of Jasper's voice as he pressed the muzzle of the gun against my temple.

James rolled to his feet and laughed.

"Ah, Jasper. I'm only having a little fun with the new kid. The new boy needs to take his lickings just like we all did when Garrett brought us into the fold," James said, wiping blood away from his split lip. "What's the use of him if he can't even hunt?"

Jasper didn't respond. He just stared hard at James, long enough that James broke eye contact and strode away.

"I'll give you one last chance, kid. If you can't make the next kill, I'll tell Garrett and you'll be out on your ass or worse," Jasper stated in a matter-of-fact voice to me.

Then, he turned away and continued to walk through the grass.

We walked for quite a distance before we reached another outcropping of trees in the distance.

Jasper stopped walking and turned towards me.

"We should be able to find some game in there. This is your-" he began, but suddenly the grass parted on Jasper's left, just out of his field of vision. A dead man dressed in overalls with long scraggly hair climbed surprisingly quickly to its feet, stumbling forward and grabbing Jasper by the shoulder and arm before he even noticed his approach.

With a grunt of surprise, Jasper reached for his gun but was yanked to the side by the creature before he could get a hold of it.

Without thinking, I grabbed the knife I kept hidden in one of my boots and strode forward. I grabbed the thing around the neck and yanked its head back by the hair. Shoving my blade hard into its upturned chin, I felt it go limp.

I dropped it to the ground and met Jasper's eyes.

Before either of us could say anything, I saw the grass parting a few feet away from James who was busy watching us.

"There's another one," I hissed and spun around James to meet the dead before it could get to its feet.

With my knife gripped in my hand, I brushed the grass apart and attacked the dead woman who was dragging herself through the grass using only her arms because her legs were missing.

Without any difficulty, I killed her.

Turning back to Jasper and James, I saw that each one of them was fighting hand-to-hand with other dead. And more were approaching through the grass.

I pushed forward, trying to reach the dead before they could get their hands on us.

As one lunged for me, I ducked under its outstretched arms and pushed it to the ground using both hands to stab the thing in the head with all my might.

This was what I was good at. I was a killer of dead things. I wasn't a hunter, I was a killer.

Once the thing under me stopped moving, I lunged for another that had almost reached Jasper.

Leaping onto its back, I knocked it to the ground and shoved my knife into the back of its neck, severing its spinal cord.

Climbing to my feet, I saw that Jasper and James were just finishing off their kills.

I expected at least some acknowledgement for saving their lives, but Jasper said nothing while James glared at me and turned away.

Then with a laugh, James strode ahead of us both, heading towards the trees.

I shook my head in confusion. It seemed like James wasn't even fazed by our close call. He was almost happy as he pushed through the tall grass that could hide any number of the dead. Jasper, on the other hand, seemed even more distant and quiet.

After a few minutes of walking, Jasper broke the silence.

"Be careful around James. He sees you as competition. It's happened before and he's always come out on top," Jasper said, from where he'd slowed down and begun to walk by my side.

I was shocked that James saw me as competition because he was probably twice my age.

"What happened to his last competition?" I asked.

"He killed him," Jasper said, matter-of-factly.

I froze.

"It's survival of the fittest in this new world. Everything is competition—food, things, women," he continued. "Garrett is god in our new little group. But if you can't protect yourself against James, Garrett won't help you. Neither will anyone else."

Without another word, he walked away from me and into the woods.

When we arrived back at camp, I hung back. Even though we'd found other birds, I was still not able to hit anything. And after my conversation with Jasper, I was on edge. Garrett could just as well kill me as throw me out of their group.

So when James and Jasper approached Garrett with our backpacks of produce and nothing else, I watched them intently.

Jasper leaned towards Garrett and talked to him in a low voice. James joined in and while he did it, he occasionally looked at me with a smirk.

Jasper opened our backpacks and poured out all of the vegetables that we'd picked at Richardson's farm. Garrett looked down at the vegetables on the ground and then over at me with a cold calculating look. Then, he barked out some kind of order that I couldn't hear, but I knew that whatever it was wasn't good when James' smirk turned into a broad grin.

But before anything could happen, Jasper leaned towards Garrett again and muttered something.

James spun back towards them and growled in anger. His hands were gesturing violently as he pointed at me and then at Jasper.

Garrett looked at me speculatively and then at Jasper and James.

He suddenly made a sharp gesture at James who had become increasingly loud and angry as he shoved Jasper.

Immediately, James snapped his mouth shut and took a step back, but I could see that he was seething under his contained exterior.

Garrett beckoned me, but I still held back, not knowing whether I was walking towards my death.

When I didn't approach, Garrett's eyes narrowed at me and gestured more sharply at me to come forward.

Reluctantly, I walked up to them and stood before Garrett nervously.

"James seems to think you're useless and will only be a drain on our resources," he said, coldly.

I glared at James and snapped, "I wasn't so useless when I saved your life, was I? And you're welcome, by the way."

"Fuck you," James snarled loud enough to catch the attention of the rest of the camp, causing an eerie silence.

I saw a flicker of what looked like amusement in Garrett's eyes before the hard look returned.

"James, if you can't shut your mouth, I'll shut it for you. Now, take these vegetables to my wife before I decide to kick your ass," Garrett snapped, not even looking at him.

Without a word, James shoved the food into the backpack and stomped away.

The rest of the group remained silent as Garrett looked between me and Jasper.

"Jasper has said that he'll vouch for you," Garrett said, looking me in the eyes. "That means you're his responsibility. If you fuck up, he'll be responsible for dealing with you. But if you do something to put the group at risk, then you both become liabilities."

I looked at Jasper in confusion before looking back at Garrett.

"Do you understand me, Edward? If you fuck up badly enough, we won't just kill you. Jasper will take the punishment too," he said.

I looked at Jasper again, not understanding. Why would he do this?

But instead of seeing any answers in Jasper's eyes, he looked back at me with a blank expression.

"Now, go get some food before it's all gone," he said, turning and walking back to his camp site.

And with that, we were dismissed.

I followed Jasper to the fire and dished myself out a bowl of soup, but then I just stood there, not knowing what to do next.

I looked around at the others and noticed that James had joined a large group of men that made up most of the guards. I could feel the anger pouring off of them as they huddled together talking quietly. At one point, James looked up at me from where he sat in the middle of the group and the look in his eyes was pure hatred.

I looked away, not wanting to cause a fight to start.

I looked for Jasper and found him at his camp site. Jasper didn't share a fire with anyone else. His was set somewhat apart from the others on the edge of the encampment. From what I'd seen in the last two days, Jasper didn't associate with anyone. He was like a shadow around the camp that no one really noticed, except for Garrett. Garrett called upon Jasper just as much as James for help with the running of the camp.

I walked to his camp site and sat down next to him. Beyond a flicker of his eyes towards me, he ignored me.

We ate in a kind of tense silence, each in our own thoughts.

I didn't understand what had just happened. Why had Jasper put his life on the line for me? It didn't make any sense.

I thought about starting a conversation with Jasper, but I didn't know how to start.

Again, it was Jasper who broke the silence.

"I'll teach you how to hunt. But if James comes after you, you're on your own. If it happens, you should try to kill him. He'll kill you if he has the chance," he said, quietly.

"Why did you vouch for me Jasper?" I asked.

"I have my reasons," he said, not looking up at me from his bowl.

We sat in silence after that, both of us staring into the flames of his small fire.

"What now?" I asked.

"Now, we sleep and tomorrow morning I'll start to teach you how to hunt," he said as he smothered the fire and lay down on a patch of grass.

I lay down as well on the other side of the fire, propping my head up with my coat.

I couldn't sleep, so instead I stared at the people around me.

The camp seemed to be divided into three groups. Families were clustered together in the RVs on the left side of the camp. Then, there were the single women who varied in age from young children to the elderly. They had set up a series of tents in a circle, the openings facing inwards, like their own little campsite. The final group were the guardsmen who had set up under a group of trees, next to the women. There were about ten of them altogether.

Before shutting down for the night, the men gathered with the women, flirting and carousing. Some of the women seemed to be having fun while others seemed uncomfortable with the attention. I watched as a redhead with long curly hair, walked over to James and plopped herself down onto his lap. James smirked and leaned into her neck for a moment, whispering something in her ear, but then looked away. He wasn't focused on the girls or his buddies, but on Garrett's campsite. As he watched Garrett with his wife and daughter, there was a gleam in his eyes that I didn't understand.

The other guardsmen, who weren't on duty, sat by the fire playing cards, drinking, and smoking. There was a restlessness about them, reminding me of the buzzing of a hornet's nest that had just been kicked.

"Mind your own business, Edward. Don't draw any more attention to yourself than you already have," Jasper muttered to me quietly.

I looked over at Jasper and saw that his eyes were open a crack, staring at me.

My eyes flickered to Garrett's camp site and I noticed that Tanya who sat next to her mother was looking in my direction. I quickly looked away, my eyes returning to James. His eyes were now trained on me. When he made eye contact, his mouth spread into a grin that was anything but friendly.

I broke eye contact quickly and rolled onto my side, facing away from the rest of the camp and tried to force myself to go to sleep.