Zombie Rules (Book 4): Destiny (36 page)

I walked over to the newly constructed guard tower, a square structure made with a mixture of lumber and concrete blocks, sitting a few feet above ground level and surrounded by stacked sandbags. But, all that was wasted, as the door was propped open by a concrete block. Goober was sitting inside and waved cheerfully as I walked up.

“Every time I come around, you're pulling guard duty,” I said. He smiled a big toothy smile.

“Shoot, I don't mind. I kind of like sitting out here. It's nice listening to the birds singing. Besides,” he picked up a drawing pad, “it gives me plenty of time to draw.” Goober showed me some of his work, mostly of birds, and to my surprise they were really nice with lots of detail and shading which made the birds look three dimensional.

“Those are great,” I said. “Do you do people as well?” Goober nodded enthusiastically and showed me a couple more drawings of some of the school group.

“These are really nice.” Goober grinned at the compliment.

“You want me to draw a picture of your two kids?” My eyes widened.

“Would you?”

“It’d be my pleasure,” he replied. “I like drawing kids.” He then thumbed through his pad and carefully tore out a page of the thick paper. When he handed it to me, I think my jaw dropped open. It was an exquisitely detailed drawing of Macie and Frederick.

“I drew that one back at the CDC, but they’ve grown some since then. I’ll be glad to draw them again.”

“I’d be most appreciative,” I said. Goober grinned again and bobbed his head.

“Let’s plan on the day after tomorrow. You and your missus dress them however you want and bring them on down here.” He looked around and pointed toward the creek.

“There’s a mighty pretty weeping willow tree down there. I think I’d like to pose them in front of it, and we’ll put little Zoe in there with them.”

“It sounds great, Goober.”

“Consider it a plan then.”

After chatting with him a few minutes, I walked over to the picnic tables where Kelly was sitting. She had the length of knotted rope and was playing tug-of-war with Zoe. I showed her the picture and told her about Goober.

“That’s beautiful,” she said. “I have an idea.” I looked at her. “Let’s make it a family portrait.”

“Good idea. We’ll need to compensate him somehow, so think that over.” I watched as she played with Zoe.

“She’s about ready to start some serious training.”

“How do you think it’s going to go?” Kelly asked. “The decision, how do you think it’ll go?” I chuckled.

“You know, I’m a little surprised at Cutter. He actually did a pretty good job as a defense attorney. He rightfully pointed out that we’d neglected to search them.”

“You think he’ll get off?” Sarah asked. I shrugged. Kate, Kyra and Cutter came outside and joined us. Kyra fished out a pack of cigarettes and lit one. Kate frowned and motioned for one.

“You hope they find him guilty of murder,” Kate said accusingly after taking a deep drag.

“I actually don’t give a shit, but I will say this,” I said as I stared at Cutter. “Your brother is a loose cannon. He’s going to get himself, or someone else hurt or killed one day.” Cutter looked at me steadily. “And you follow him blindly.”

“You’ve killed people too,” he countered. “I’ve heard the stories.” I didn’t respond and grabbed the rope away from Zoe. She barked at me the way puppies do when they want something.

“What happens if he’s found guilty?” Kyra asked.

“It’ll be up to Tonya and the jury, but he’ll probably be banished.” I said.

“If he’s banished, I’m leaving too,” Cutter proclaimed, as if that really mattered. I didn’t bother with a response. The opening of the steel double-doors made us all look over. Justin and Ruth walked out.

“Janet’s bitching again,” Ruth said as she sat.

“What about this time?” Kelly asked. Ruth threw up her hands.

“Everything in general,” she replied, to which Kelly rolled her eyes.

“Great, dinner is going to be pleasant this evening,” she muttered sarcastically.

“You’d be happy to see Shooter banished,” Kate accused, obviously not wanting to let it go. “Go ahead and admit it.”

“Let me make something clear to everyone. I don’t care what the jury or Tonya decides. What I do care about is there’s something more going on here." I gestured at Cutter again. "That man knew something about you two, and Simon was willing to murder him in order to shut him up.”

“My brother was protecting us,” Cutter maintained. Like we needed his protection, I thought.

“What do you have against him anyway?” he asked.

“I could name several things, but the main one is: he’s an eccedentesiast.” Cutter frowned and looked at me like I was questioning their parentage. I explained.

“An eccedentesiast is a person who hides their true feelings behind a fake smile. You know, like the way politicians would do, back before. Hard to trust a person like that.” Cutter looked away and didn’t respond. Justin laughed.

“Eccedentesiast, that’s a mighty big word.”

“Oh, you should have known him a while back,” Kelly said with a grin. “He used to never speak unless he could throw in a few words with a lot of syllables.” She grabbed the rope away from me and tossed it at Zoe. “He’s gotten better though,” she said with a grin. While we were talking, Tonya stuck her head out of the door and motioned at us. All of us hurriedly walked back inside. After everyone was seated, Gus ushered the pseudo jury back into the cafeteria.

“Has the jury reached a verdict?” Tonya asked. Rhonda, who’d sat down a microsecond before Tonya spoke, quickly stood.

“We have a bit of a quandary - judge,” Rhonda said shakily.

“What kind of quandary?”

“Four of us think Shooter committed murder, and the other four think he acted in defense.”

“In defense?” Tonya asked. “You mean self-defense?” Rhonda shook her head.

“I mean, we mean, Shooter acted in defense of the group.” She looked around at all of us. “We all agree Shooter may have acted hastily, but some of us think he was acting in the best interests of the crew and not acting with malice.”

“What does that mean?” Kelly whispered to me. I shrugged.

“It means we have a hung jury.”

Tonya heard my response and looked at me. I looked back as if to say, what now? The look on her face told me everything. She broke eye contact and looked over at the so-called jury.

“Thank you for performing your duty,” she said, got up, and walked out of the room.

“That was weird,” Kelly said as we drove home. “Or am I missing something?”

“What do you think, Zach?” Janet asked.

"It means nothing changes," I replied. In truth, I had a lot more of an opinion on the matter. When it came down to Tonya having to make a serious, tough decision regarding the fate of a person's life, she couldn't do it. It made me wonder about the next time something like this happened.

“Nothing is going to happen to Shooter?” Kelly asked.

“It doesn't look that way.”

“That's bullshit,” she said. “I was right there and watched him murder that man. The world’s so fucked up.”

“Yeah, well, what’s normal these days,” Janet quipped. She was right.

I sat and watched in amazement as Justin worked the key with seemingly effortless speed. I’d made a point of memorizing Morse code, but even so, I had a hard time keeping up. Finally, he signed off and looked over at us with a smile.

“They just confirmed it. POTUS is sending a delegation.”

“Wait,” True piped up. “What? Who?” The man didn’t talk a heck of a lot, but Justin’s statement had him suddenly attentive and sitting on the edge of his chair.

“The President, he’s sending a delegation down to visit since we won’t go up there.”

“He’s still alive?” he asked incredulously. Justin nodded. True leaned back in his chair. “Well, ain’t that some shit,” he muttered, causing Kelly to snicker.

“What’s the purpose of the delegation?” I asked warily.

“They’re calling it the reunification tour. Apparently, they’ve made contact with other pockets of survivors like ours at other cities and have brought them together.” I grunted.

“What?” he asked.

“I don’t know what they can offer us.”

“When are they coming?” Kelly asked.

“Seven days,” Justin said.

“Great,” I said. “I suppose I’ll need to make the Gunderson clan scarce for a while.”

“I guess I’m out of the loop,” True said. “Because I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.” I inadvertently let out a long sigh and told the story. True listened closely, occasionally glancing over at Ruth and Justin.

“Is all that true?” he asked Justin when I was through. Justin nodded somberly.

“I’m afraid it is.”

“That’s pretty fucked up.”

“Yeah,” I replied quietly. “But, it’s water under the bridge.” Kelly, who was sitting beside me, gave my hand a gentle squeeze.

“Zach, whatever your decision is, we’ll back you,” Ruth said.

“I appreciate that,” I said and stood. Kelly stood with me. “We’re going to go home and talk about it.” We bid our goodbyes and talked in the truck on the way home.

“Are we going to bug out?” Kelly asked as she drove.

“I’m not sure. What do you think?”

“I think maybe, at the very least, we should hide the children again.”

Janet had already fed the kids so Kelly fixed a plate for the two of us. I sat at the table as the kids climbed up in my lap and vied for attention.

“How is everyone?” Janet asked. I shrugged as I positioned the two of them on each knee and related everything. Her expression changed from joyfulness to concern as I filled them in.

“They’ll try me for murder, Zach,” Janet said. I almost said it wouldn’t happen, but it was possible. For that matter, they might see Solonowski’s death as a murder and put me on trial as well.

“What are we going to do?”

“I’m going to hide these two urchins,” I said as I gave them a playful bounce. “I’ve thought about this. I’m not going to ask Kelly to hide out with them again without knowing what the hell is going on. I’m going to do it.”

“Are you sure?” she asked. “I mean, I would think they would want to speak to you more than anyone.” Sarah was sitting at the table and was listening quietly.

“I’ll be happy to hide the kids,” she said.

“I will too,” Janet added. Sarah glanced at her without any outward emotion. I raised a hand to head off any possible argument.

“Nope, I’m going to take care of it.”

“So, you’re not going to have anything to do with this delegation?” Sarah asked.

“Doubtful, but we’ll see.”

“That’s a little vague,” she said. “But whatever.”

Kelly and I were lying in bed, talking about the day’s events when there was a soft knock on the door. Kelly and I exchanged frowns and each of us sat up.

“Come in.” The door opened slowly and Janet appeared. Kelly instinctively pulled the blankets up over her breasts.

“I hope I’m not intruding.”

“Are the kids okay?” I asked. She nodded.

“They’re both asleep.” She stared at us and I got the impression she was thinking about Kelly and me in bed together and Julie lying buried in the cold ground.

“I think you should reconsider my offer.”

“Why?” I asked, genuinely perplexed.

“Because you’re the main person who got all of this started. You might have questions for them and you might be able to extract information from them that nobody else would think about.” She paused for a second. “You seem to have a knack for that.” I looked at Kelly again.

“Thank you for the compliment,” I responded. “I want to talk it over with Kelly and maybe we’ll reach a decision tomorrow.”

“Okay, good night.” She closed the door quietly.

“What do you think?” I asked Kelly quietly.

“They said they’d be here in seven days. I’m going to be ready and watching for them.”

“Are you going to go out roaming around in your ghillie suit again?” she asked, somewhat sarcastically. I grunted.

“If that’s what you want to call it, but I’m not going to be caught with my pants down.”

As expected, they arrived precisely one week later. I had a concealed position and watched them with binoculars, although they were easy to spot as they drove along the state highway. They were in a rugged-looking armored military vehicle equipped with eight wheels and a large caliber machine gun mounted on top. Five gallon jerry cans were lashed down around the vehicle. It looked very formidable. I watched them as they slowly clambered up Bell Road and turned onto Nolensville Pike. From my position, I had a view down Bell Road of over a thousand meters. There was no other vehicle in sight.

As rehearsed, Sarah and Rachel were monitoring the radio. When I called them, they caught up with them before they even made it the first block. I watched through the rifle’s scope as Rachel waved them down. They stopped and exited the vehicle. All four of them.