Three hours of sleep under my belt, nothing for breakfast or lunch, a swollen arm, an aching collarbone, and Merle pissing on a tree behind me. Really, what more can I ask for?
"Man, there ain't nothin' out here but skeeters 'n ants." My dad's leaning on the tree I'm sitting next to.
"Patience, little brother. Sooner or later, a squirrel's bound to scurry 'cross your path."
"Even so, that ain't much food." I feel his eyes on me and pretend not to.
"More'n nothin'."
Speaking of ants, there's a small group of them crawling on my boot. Probably making their way up my leg. Oh, well. I watch as they move across the leather and wonder if they ever fight with each other.
"Have better luck goin' to one of them houses we passed back on the turnoff," Dad says.
"Is that what your new friends taught ya? Hm? How to loot for booty?"
New friends. As if that even begins to cover it. Carl felt like the oldest friend I ever had . . . I hear Merle's zipper and then him stepping up behind us.
"Man, we been out here for hours," says Dad, and he's right. It's mid-afternoon, we were up early in the morning, same as we always used to be. And this is probably the single most unsuccessful hunt I've ever been on.
Dad's nudging me with his foot. "You be okay with findin' a stream, tryin' our luck with some fish?"
Merle's in my line of vision now, grinning. "Oh, that's right. Little Bit gets all squeamish 'bout the worms."
"That ain't it," I say, but I don't offer him any more of an explanation, because he's heard it all before and it won't make a difference to tell it to him again. And the last person I talked to about my dislike of fishing was much more understanding and kind and I don't want to think about him because he's dead. I just turn back to the ants on my boot and mumble, "I'm okay with it."
"Well, thank you for your permission, darlin'," says Merle. He eyes my dad. "And I think you're just tryin' to lead me back to the road, man. Get me over to that prison."
That doesn't make any sense. My dad told me just yesterday that we weren't going back. But now, now Dad says, "Syd and me left some things we gotta go get."
I look up at him. He gives me a barely-there half-smile that's sort of sad but not totally and for just a very tiny second things are almost good. And that's what pushes my mouth into moving, into telling Merle in a voice that sounds brighter than I wanted it to be, "And we could talk to Rick again. See if he's changed his mind 'bout you."
"You ain't changed your mind 'bout me, you 'spect him to?"
Well. Can't really argue with him there. But Dad, Dad's saying, "Shelter. Food. Pot to piss in . . . Might not be such a bad idea."
"Yeah, for you two, maybe. Ain't gonna be no damn party for me."
Dad raises his crossbow, checks the sights. "Everyone'll get used to each other."
"They're all dead. Makes no difference."
My legs go rigid. Some ants actually fall from my boot.
"How can you be so sure?" Dad asks coolly, and I feel his fingertips graze the top of my head.
"Right about now, he's probably hostin' a housewarmin' party. Where he's gonna bury what's lefta your pals."
I find my footing and walk away. Fast. Before I say something that'll get me in deep trouble. Because I want to say a lot and every last bit of it would get me into deep trouble. I hear Dad call my name and then I hear him using that same hissing voice he used with me yesterday, but this time it's for Merle, and Merle says something back, too loud, and I plug my ears like I'm not supposed to and walk for a while, searching for someplace to sit, but instead I find a walker. Used to be a man, young enough to have been in college. It's just chilling out behind a tree when it sees me, bares its teeth, and comes forward right into an arrow. It falls down, I go to it, I take my arrow out, and then I kick the body as hard as I can five times. One kick for Merle. A second for Merle. Two for the Governor. Another one for Merle. When I look up, Dad's here, watching me. I don't like the expression on his face.
"What?" I snap, and I force my face to go soft to make up for it. Dad studies the walker, then me again, and then he sighs. He's been sighing a lot these past couple of days. Mostly when he's talking to me.
"You okay?" he asks.
"No," the honest answer slips out before I can rethink it.
"Syd –"
"I don't wanna talk about it." And I don't. I don't want to talk about the evidence for our group being dead or not being dead and I sure as hell don't want to listen to Dad defend Merle. I slide my arrow back into my quiver without bothering to clean it. "Please? Can we just go fishin'?"
It takes him a second to nod, but an answer's an answer. He and I walk back to Merle and I look at my uncle just to show him that he didn't make me cry, and then I get on with ignoring him.
An hour later, Dad and Merle are arguing again, this time because Merle thinks the creek we've just started hearing is the Sawhatchee and Dad thinks it's the Yellow Jacket, and that's when I hear something totally different, something very out of place, and for just a second I have this image of Carl and Rick and everyone, Little Asskicker included, showing up here to take us home, but of course that's stupid.
I know what I'm hearing, though, and I've frozen up. "Dad?" But Merle's telling him not to get his panties in a bundle so I have to repeat myself. "Dad!"
"What is it?"
"You hear that?"
And there it is again, the kind of high-pitched wail I've come to know. Far away but not that far. Dad meets my eyes. He hears it, too.
It's Merle who answers me, though. "Aw, Sydney, that's just wild animals gettin' wild." He nods at Dad. "Ain't you talked to her 'bout the birds 'n the bees yet?"
"That's a baby," I say, completely sure now.
"Huh-uh, Little Bit. See, when a mama coon and a daddy coon love each other very much –"
I don't hear the rest because I'm racing towards the river. I come down to the shore, nearly slip in the mud, but Dad's here with me and he catches my arm. To our right, a high concrete bridge stretches over the water, and on top of the bridge are some cars, at least one man – shouting in Spanish – standing on the back of a loading truck right on the bridge's edge, at least one woman screaming somewhere, at least one baby crying, at least one gun going off, and a lot more than one walker trying to get a meal.
Merle's beside us now. He whistles one of his loud, ear-hurting whistles. "Hey! Jump!" And then he laughs, and I don't even know what to do with that.
Dad touches my arm. He's already moving by the time he does. "Sydney –"
"Yeah –" And now I'm running after him through the woods, hoping he knows where he's going, and of course he does, because he's my dad. Merle calls after us but neither of us pay him any mind. Which is cool.
Up a hill, closer to the noise. I jump over branches and plants that try to snag my ankle, and I'm good at it, thanks to lots of weekends spent on hunting trips a lot more fun than this one has been. Dad's faster than me, of course, but I'm not that far behind him, not that far at all. And then the woods clear out ahead of us and my feet are off the soil and pounding on concrete. I see two men on the back of the loading truck now, and one of them has his leg caught in a walker's arms, and that's the one my dad shoots first.
The bridge is packed with cars and walkers. Only the loading truck and this one red van-thing actually have walkers going after them. I move up next to my dad as he shrugs his backpack off, and I do the same with mine, and Dad shoots another walker and gets the arrow back and uses it stab a third one in the head. But there are a lot more. I shoot one to my right and catch a glimpse of Merle walking up the bridge after us, taking his sweet time, but then I lose him and focus on the fight, on the walker in front of me, who dies now.
"C'mon man, we're tryin' to help you out!" Dad yells, I guess to one of the Spanish-speaking guys. "How 'bout some cover?" And I glance over to see a man jump from the loading truck, into a pile of garbage, and come up with a gun.
"Syd, watch your back!" Dad shouts, but Carl's –
Not here. I whirl in time to release an arrow into a walker that was too close for comfort. By a lot. Damn. Focus. Focus. The truck's pretty much clear now. Dad just shot a walker dead on the hood of the van. I can see the shape of a person inside, a screaming woman, and, yes, that's where the baby's crying is coming from, too. I take out a walker with its face pressed against the window. Disgusting thing. I run past Dad as he uses his crossbow to smash the skull of another one into another window, and I round the van to the back, which is open and has a walker halfway into it, reaching its arms into the front seat. I have my bow loaded and I start to aim it, but no, that's stupid, the baby and the woman are right there, but then my dad's in front of me and saying back up and he's yanking the thing out and I turn and put down something else while he crushes that walker's head in the hatchback door. I shoot two more arrows, scramble to get 'em both back because I'm out, and by that time Merle's finally stepped in and shot a walker and my dad . . . my dad's just been a freaking badass. I shoot one more walker, Dad stabs another and kicks it from the bridge, and then it's quiet. Quieter, at least. More walkers are heading over here, but they're all the way on the other end of the bridge.
I move over to the red van, lean on a part that isn't totally soaked in blood. Dad touches my shoulder, looks me over, and I nod at him and he nods back and we're both okay. The baby's still crying. So's the woman, I think.
A door opens on the other side of where my dad and me are on the van, and then there's yelling in Spanish and a gun cocks, and Merle is standing next to the open back door with a gun pointed over the window at one of the men, the older one, probably the father. And Merle tells him to slow down and that that ain't no way to say thank you and the man says something I can't understand but that sounds disbelieving and desperate and I'm remembering that I have very little energy and I lean against the car and close my eyes.
"Let him go," Dad says from my side. But that's all he does. And of course Merle doesn't listen.
"Least they can do is give us an enchilada or somethin' . . ."
Is this how it's going to be? That's the question I hope I'm asking when I force my eyes open and I look at my dad as Merle begins to dig through the backseat. Is this how life's going to be for us from now on?
Dad's jaw moves, his gaze on mine. Then he circles the car, over to Merle, and what happens next is something I immediately know I'll never, ever forget.
Dad lifts his crossbow and points it at my uncle's back. "Get out of the car."
I move around the hood to get a better view, because I must be mistaken. But no. There's my uncle, there's my dad, there's the crossbow.
"I know you're not talkin' to me, brother . . ." says Merle in a way that says he knows damn well Dad's talking to him.
Dad looks over at the man Merle just had a gun to. "Get in your car and get the hell outta here! Go! Get in your car!" And the man and his son jump and run, run past me and into the van, and I step out of its path as Merle straightens up and stares my dad down over the crossbow. The van backs up, backs away, out of our lives, and for a second I'm nervous something more is about to happen with Dad and Merle and that crossbow but then Dad lowers it and stalks off, grabbing his backpack and my shoulder along on the way, and as he leads me on I barely have time to gather up my arrows and my own backpack.
But that was awesome.
Wasn't it? Part of me thinks it was. Dad flat-out standing up to Merle, for the first time I can remember. But then another part of me notices the way my dad's face is set, and – as a glance behind me shows – how my uncle looks completely, totally pissed off. And that worries me. And I know this isn't something we're going to walk away from.
As we step off the bridge, my eye catches on a blue sign planted to the side. Yellow Jacket Creek, it reads.