Green Fields (Book 4): Extinction (15 page)

Glancing at our vehicles for a moment, I pressed on. By now, everyone had fallen silent, the mute crowd watching me. It made my skin crawl, but there was no way around it. “I can’t speak for Jason and his Chargers, but we have quite some cargo stored away that we’re happy to trade for. Trade, as in you give us something in exchange for what you get. That’s how commerce works. We have things like tools. Nails. Clothes and gear. Soap. Shampoo. Tampons. Condoms. Medicine. Coffee and tea. We didn’t plan on coming here so we don’t know what you have on your wish list, but if it’s something not out of the ordinary, we probably have it, or something close. What we need is food, preferably fresh preserves that we can eat straight away, or that only need to be heated up later. Nuts, jerky, all kinds of dried fruit and vegetables. Use this summer to create surplus that you can trade away next year. Be smart. We’ll help you, but only if you help us.”

I didn’t know what else to say, so I hopped down from the car and turned away. Let the others deal with this. If it was looking like I was hiding by the Rover, pretending to check on the repair progress, that was just plain old coincidence.

It only took about five minutes for a group of women to approach the cars, all looking uncomfortable, but I saw residual anger on more than one face. I fully expected any one of them to start chewing me out, or spewing profanities at us, but they surprised me. It was one of the younger women, maybe twenty, her thick, black hair bound back with a scarf who spoke up.

“We are so sorry for how the mayor and the guards are treating you. We’ve had some problems with them in the past, but the recent events made it obvious that we need them, so…” She trailed off, another one taking over.
 

“What Keisha is trying to say is that not all of us think like they do. Tell us what you need, and we’re happy to give it to you if we can spare it. Without anything in exchange. Although there are some things we’d need.”

That I hadn’t expected, but it wasn’t an unwelcome surprise.

“Sure,” I replied. “As I said, food, mostly. Something that holds up for at least a few days. But we still haven’t eaten anything today. Puking all over yourself when you have to stay sharp in a fight isn’t the way to come out at the other end. And, please, take those fucking crates back with you. If you want to do us a solid, cook it up, or just bake something. Bread’s nice. We haven’t really had much of it since we went back on the road in April. Anything that’s better than cat food will do. We’re all sick of eating that crap, even if it keeps us fed.”

A few of them looked appropriately disturbed by that revelation—always a favorite moment for me with the townies—and Keisha was already rallying the others, telling each woman what to do, and to take the crates. In short order, half of them were gone, promising to be back within an hour or two. The rest kept eyeing me hopefully, making me a little antsy.
 

“Just tell me what you need,” I offered. “Now’s not the time to get self-conscious.”

And, just like that, I had my work cut out for me until baskets full of bread and several pots of thick, spicy soup arrived, making everyone crowd in to finally get something to eat. A lot of what they were looking for was predictable, but a few other things went straight onto my ever growing list of items I had neglected on our last raids but would take with me next time. I couldn’t help but grin at the tampons and pads finding a lot more interest than the crate full of condoms that the guys insisted we needed to keep lugging around with us. Also diapers and baby powder, spices, everything that could be used as a natural remedy and they hadn’t managed to plant yet. Clothes weren’t in high demand, but one of the women mentioned to me that it was probably a good idea to stock up on them now before they could all rot away out there, left for animals to make nests out of them. Only a single woman asked about makeup, and she wasn’t surprised when I had to tell her that unless she ordered it, she wouldn’t get any. She did look like she had an idea how to repay the lucky guy who would in the future drop by with a bag full of lipsticks. Not that I felt like judging her—much. If not for the stale taste the memory of Madeline had left I wouldn’t have felt like scowling at her, and she seemed like a genuinely nice, bubbly kind of girl who wouldn’t spend all her time being a backstabbing, manipulative bitch.

When it became apparent that I had spoken the truth and none of the women returned from the cars empty-handed, a few of the men showed up, too, but most seemed to prefer to send their wives and girlfriends. Some of them couldn’t even look me in the eye. I had a certain feeling that if the next scavenger group had female members with them, they wouldn’t get gawked at quite so much. Good deed for the day accomplished—never mind all the zombies I’d killed today.

It was getting awfully close to our declared time to leave when a group of people came toward us, carrying baskets and crates or rolling them toward us in wheelbarrows. Most of it were edibles—bread, muffins, dried fruit, jerky, and what one woman assured me would turn into soup if I just let it sit in hot water. The crates held some things that they’d produced on their own and figured we could trade to other settlements, mostly wool and seeds. Apparently, the people who had started the settlement had been quick about trying to turn it into an autonomous town even before the winter, and my speech had been enough to remind them of that.

With the food, a few familiar faces came, too, making me let out a relieved breath that I hadn’t known I’d been secretly holding. I only vaguely remembered Elaine, her sister, and their group, but I had spent two entire months on the road with Skip and Steve, two of the three college kids that we’d picked up in Lexington before our timely flight from the city. My first impulse was to think that they’d grown fat, but that shouldn’t have come as a surprise. We’d all been starving last summer, cat food or no cat food. While we’d spent the entire winter actively guarding our hideout—and, in my case, learning all the many, many skills I had never thought I’d need—they had likely passed the time sitting on their asses, indoors. The settlement might not have had the abundance of food that all of us had been used to before the zombies had shoved us off our throne as apex predators, but none of the people looked particularly malnourished. I couldn’t help the flicker of resentment that came up inside of me, but it wasn’t envy—it was contempt. Realizing that made me smile. Not that I had much doubt that I’d made the right choice, time and again, to stick with Nate and the guys, but it was good to get confirmation, particularly as the last weeks had been full of experiences that might have swayed my mind at least somewhat. With not a little bit of mirth I realized that the two boys were regarding me pretty much the same way. I wondered what they saw in me.

It was Elaine’s dog that broke what little tension there was in the air, when he came running straight by me to barrel into Nate, demanding ear rubs and back scratches with a few loud barks—that he immediately received. I watched the spectacle for a few seconds before turning to Elaine. “Glad you still have him around. And glad to see you all made it here.”

She shared my smile, even if hers was a little sad. I was sure that meeting us reminded her of whoever they’d lost that day we’d first run into each other, when we’d helped them get their car rolling again. We’d lost Madeline and her kids—although “lost” was too harsh a word; Erica, Madeline’s daughter, was the only one I felt guilty about—to those idiots behind their fence. Part of me wondered for a moment if we should pay them another visit, but I could already imagine how Nate would veto that immediately. Too much risk, nothing to gain for us, and seeing as we personally hadn’t had any of ours killed, there was no reason for retribution. The cannibals had been different because they’d become so much more of a nuisance. Maybe, if they kept up the fuckery from last summer, they’d find themselves on our shit list soon enough. Hopefully.

When had I turned so vindictive?

“Same here,” she said, watching the dog now go on and jump around Andrej and Burns, leaving Nate to join me. We shook hands with Elaine, her sister, and her husband who’d kept in the back with Steve, while Skip eyed our cars and gear with a hint of interest. “We were wondering if you’d drop by our town any time soon. Dave told us that you’d left when it got warmer, but he didn’t have any news yet the last time we talked.” Which was likely before we’d come to Aurora, depending on how long their radios had been down. We hadn’t really had much reason to call home in the meantime. I could understand why—unless we got confirmation that they’d already known about the new rules the settlements had established but hadn’t told us the few times we’d made contact, we could pretend they’d been just as in the dark as we’d been. And it wasn’t like they couldn’t have reached out to us. Come to think of it, why hadn’t they?

Leaving for Dispatch sounded better by the minute. After more than six weeks out on the road, with no space to feel safe—Aurora excluded, looking back—it was about time I got some R&R to put all that behind me and shut up the raging paranoia in my mind.

I realized that my inner monologue had gone on for too long from how Elaine looked at me, and tried to simply shrug it off.

“None of us got much sleep last night,” I offered, not even having to fake my yawn. “I hope you’ll get your radio working soon? If you have a relay station out there somewhere that needs repair, I’m sure we can work something out, like that we’ll protect your tech team.”

Elaine gave her husband a strange look but didn’t reply. Neither did he, which turned the moment even more awkward. I could understand that after being beleaguered by zombies none of them were too happy to go out there any time soon, but it normally wasn’t that bad. If we’d ditched the cars and put some effort into being silent in a stretch that was pretty much abandoned, we could have gone days without meeting a soul on two legs, shambler or otherwise.

Rescue came from a completely surprising direction when Santos, of all people, came sauntering over, grinning brightly as he and the college kids clapped each other’s shoulders. I hadn’t realized that they’d been so tight, but they looked like they were already on the fast track to rekindling their friendship.

“Hey, man! What you been up to?” Skip asked, the enthusiasm in his voice real.

“Not much,” Santos offered with false modesty. “Just some really crazy shit.” His mouth opened, ready to offer up some examples, but for whatever reason he left it at a low “the usual,” after a glance at me. I had no idea what that was supposed to mean so I ignored them, turning back to Elaine.

“I see you’re already making the best of spring?” I asked her, nodding toward the rows of planted crops between us and the main part of the settlement. Even from where we were standing it was obvious that they would soon get their first harvest in, whatever those bushy green vegetables were that grew right up to the main path. Elaine glanced at where I was looking, the previous tension slowly leaking out of her shoulders.

“We were lucky,” she said, agreeing with me. “By the time we got here, the community was well on its way to establishing itself. We already went through three extensions. The only thing we don’t have is corn, but we can do without. There are even some decent herds of livestock at the other end of town.”

Skip overheard that, grinning brightly. “Every week, we get chicken, and once a month even grilled beef or lamb. Post-apocalyptic barbecue for the win!”

My gorge rose, making breathing hard, and for several seconds all that prevented me from puking up soup and bread was my hand clamped over my mouth and sheer will to keep it all down. Food was too valuable to waste on my finer sensibilities. But if I didn’t get anywhere close to any charred meat in the next decade it would still be too soon. The lingering stench of decay in the air didn’t help.

Elaine and her sister eyed me with a weird kind of familiarity that I couldn’t place, but when I looked over to Santos, he seemed a little green around the nose as well. A month was still not enough time to let any of us ditch those memories.

“Thanks, but no grilled anything for me,” he said, his self-deprecating smile taking the sting out of the words.

“Since when did you get so picky?” Steve wanted to know. “I thought that after eating animal chow for weeks you guys wouldn’t shy away from actual food. You didn’t all turn vegetarian or something like that, right?”

Santos gave me a look, but when I made no move to explain, he shrugged. “Remember those cannibal freaks that we ran from, before we got the cars?”

Steve nodded. “Sure. We heard someone got them last month.”

“That was us,” Santos said, not without pride, but his enthusiasm was duly muted as he explained. “We killed those fuckers off. Torched the entire place, too, bodies included. And damn, that stench is nothing you forget that quickly.” He made a face on the next inhale. “Although, this is coming close. I’m not gonna lie, I’m not too broken up not to have to live around that for the next week or so.”

Under different circumstances I would have smirked at that, and as it was, the villagers all grimaced.

Skip cleared his throat, looking mighty impressed at Santos’s explanation, maybe even a little jealous. “Didn’t know that was you. But guess it figures.” He gave us that weird look again, and it was only when I noticed that Andrej was fussing around with something on the car behind mine that I realized what Skip was trying to do, non too stealthily—check our marks. Crossing my arms over my chest, I took a step forward, drawing his attention.

“Why don’t you just ask if you wanna know? It’s not like anyone’s keeping secrets here.”