The King of Clayfield - 01 (38 page)

"She's the only woman in
 
her group that falls into that category," Jen continued.
 
"All the other women here are either close to or
 
past menopause."

I didn't think that mattered.

"Oh," I said again. "Have
 
they tried to pressure her?"

"I don't know," Jen said. "She didn't really have time to tell me more. I don't
 
want a bunch
 
of extra
 
people living with us, but I don't want a woman to be forced into being a baby machine, either."

Again, I doubted it was about babies.

"She should come with us," Sara said.

"Sometimes men sit around and bullshit,"
 
I said. "They were probably drinking and shooting off at the mouth.
 
There may not be anything to it--"

Sara and Jen rolled their eyes at the same time.

"--but," I continued, "I don't like that Nathan guy at all,
 
and the sooner we can get away from him, the better."

"Nathan," Jen said. "That's his name. Connie doesn't like him either."

"Whatever you two do, don't mention where we are living now, and—“

"I lied to Connie and Travis," Jen said. "I
 
told them we were living north of town near the chicken plant."

"Good," I said. "We don't know if we can trust them."

"I'm sorry we can't go ahead and leave," Jen said. "I suppose we could...."

"No," I said, "I don't want to risk you getting worse. Then we'd have to come back
 
out here. It is best if we stay cordial; we never know if we'll need Dr. Barr to help us again."

"I think he'd help us again," Sara said. "He's really nice."

"He's a sweetie pie," Jen said.

An obvious
 
look passed between
 
Jen and Sara
 
that was easy to interpret, but I didn't say anything about it.

"Travis asked if we'd be joining them," Jen said.

"You mean staying here with them permanently?"

"Yeah."

"No," I said.
 
"I'm not interested in that."

"Good," Jen said with a smile.

"I really think Connie should come with us, if she wants to," Sara said.

There was a knock on the door.
 
Sara opened it. It was Brenda.

"I'm sorry to intrude," she said. "Would
 
y'all like something to eat?"

"I don't want to eat your food," I said. "I know you all will need it."

"It's alright," she said. "You’re guests. I don't think
 
three extra burgers are going to break us."

"Burgers?" Jen said.

"Yes," Brenda said. "We brought in two chest freezers
 
about three days ago. We have
 
lots of meat and
 
ice cream and--"

"Ice
 
cream?" Jen said.

"You'll eat with us," Brenda said.
 
"It'll be a very late lunch or early supper. I really don't have much of an appetite after today, so if Nathan says something we'll just tell him that y'all are eating my, Hunter's, and Jamal's rations."

She started crying.
 

"I'm sorry, Brenda," I said.

Sara went up to her and hugged her.

"We're okay,
 
Ms. Brenda," Sara said. "We ain't hungry, neither.”

Sara and I left the office so Jen could rest. We sat in the break room area and looked at magazines. I was hungry, and I could hear Sara's stomach growling, too. We could smell the burgers being cooked in the garage, and I wished we had accepted Brenda's offer.

Connie came in carrying a tray. She opened the office door, and presented Jen with a plain hamburger and some beans.
 
Jen looked out at us.

"Eat as much as you can," Connie said. "You need the protein to help you heal."

She left the office and looked at us.

"I'll bring yours right out," she said.

I was relieved.

The front door opened, and three new men walked in. Two were just a little older than me and one was sixty or more. They looked haggard and sad.

They stopped when they saw us and said hello. Connie came in with our food. When she saw the men, she called out into the garage that the men were back.

"We've been so worried," she said to them, "we didn't know who made it and who didn't."

"It was bad," one of them said. "We tried to lead them away, but it took a while. We never did find Brenda or Hunter."

"Brenda is here," Connie said. "Hunter didn't make it."

"Jamal, Anne, and Willy didn't either," one of them said.

"Nathan and Jack have gone out to look for you and the others," Connie said, setting our food in front of us.

The three men stared at us. I didn't know what they were thinking, but I doubted they liked that we were eating their food after a day like today. They were probably angry and looking for someone to take it out on.

"We drove out to the church like we were supposed to, but nobody ever showed," one said. "Mr.
 
Peterson, Linda,
 
and Pat were supposed to be waiting there for us."

"We haven't seen them," Connie said. "Maybe Nathan will find them."

Nathan and Jack returned an hour later alone. They'd had no luck locating the other missing people from their group. I suspected the others had decided to live somewhere else and had slipped away.

Everyone was upset over the losses.
 
Seven people from their group hadn't come back, and
 
even though
 
they'd only been together for a little more than a week, it was easy for me to imagine how difficult it must be for them.

Sara and I tried to stay out of their way by hiding out in the office with Jen. We could hear some loud discussions going on in the garage. I couldn't hear all of what was being said, but some
 
of it was over the failed plan to eradicate the infected, and some of it was about us. Nathan played a big part in both.

After a few minutes, Nathan stepped in the doorway. Jack and one of the other men were behind him. Nathan was at least a head taller than the other men and half as broad. His wavy reddish-brown hair was singed on the left side of this head, and his left ear had a bandage on it.

"What are you still doing here?" he said.

"The doctor said Jen needed to stay and--"

"What are
you
still doing here?"

"We're with her," I said.

"If you don't pull your weight around here you have to go," he said, "and all
 
you've done
 
is mooch our food and take a coffee break when people needed your help."

"I don't--"

"You ain't welcome here," he said. "It's been decided that you should go."

"Decided by whom?"

"There is a chain of command around here. We have to keep things orderly to keep people fed and safe. I’m not going to have anyone here that doesn’t do their share. Like the Bible says, if you don’t work, then you don’t eat."

"I'd be happy to go, just as soon as the doctor says Jen is able."

"No," Nathan said. “She’s hurt, and she’s hurt because Hunter shot her. I figure we owe her a little something for that. I’ll let her stay until she’s well enough, but you have to go now.”

"I'm not leaving her.”

“Then take her with you. Either way, I want you gone.”

"Stop," Jen said. "They'll go."

"What?" I said. "Jen, I--"

"It's okay," she said. "Come back
 
in
 
a couple of days
 
and get me."

Then she looked at Nathan and the other two.

"Would you three excuse us?"

"You've got five minutes," Nathan said.

"Make it four," Jen said.

They stepped away from the door and Sara closed it.

"Assholes,"
 
Jen said.

"Jen, are you crazy?" I said. "I'm not leaving you.
 
I'm--"

"Please shut up for a second," she said. "I want you and Sara to go back to
 
Wal-Mart before it gets too dark and get
 
the stuff we collected. I'm not going to be getting around much for a while, and we need those supplies more
 
now than before."

"But we can get that later. I'm still going to have to find food."

"I'll be fine," she said. "That stuff might be gone later. I'll ask Connie to sit with me. It'll give me time to talk to her."

I pulled the .38 out of my coat pocket.

"Here," I said. "Take it. It's empty, but they don't know that."

She took the weapon and hid it under her sheet.

"I'll be okay," she said. "Come back in a couple of days. I'll leave then whether Travis says I should or not."

"We'll be back tomorrow to check on you," I said.

"Before you leave ask him
 
if there is any medicine you should find for me."

"Jen, this is a bad idea..."

"Well, it's screwed up, that's for sure, but I'd rather hang out here with these jerks and keep my leg or my life than leave and lose one or both to infection. Travis said that could happen."

Nathan and two of the other men stood out front to see us off. Ed held the gate for us
 
as we pulled out.

"I really don't like leaving Jen here," I said.

"She can take care of herself," Sara said. "You know that."

"I know that," I said,
 
"but I feel like I'm abandoning her."

"It's only for a couple of days," Sara said. "Connie and Brenda
 
both said they would sit with
 
her."

"It doesn't bother you?" I said.

"If it was someone else, I might be worried, but
 
not Jen. Anyway,
 
you know
 
she and I aren't
 
exactly best friends."

I nodded. I felt the urge to apologize for Jen, but I didn't.

We had not
 
gotten very far from the high school when
 
the big pickup showed up in my mirror. They were following us and being
 
kind of obvious about it. The funny thing is I don't think they knew they were being obvious. These were the ones Darwin would get.

"Why
 
would they follow us?" Sara said.

"Maybe they want to know where you and Jen live."

"We were already with them," Sara said.

"Yeah."

It seemed to me that they would have been better off feeding us, being nice to us, and
 
making our stay in the maintenance building
 
as comfortable as possible.
 
It would have made their group
 
very appealing, considering they had electricity and a doctor. Jen and Sara
 
might have
wanted
to stay with them.
 
They had a couple (or more) bad apples that
 
were making a miserable life even more miserable. The rest of the group should lock the gate while they're gone and let the infected have them.

I
 
didn't want to lead them back
 
to the stables or Wal-Mart, so I stuck with Jen's story and headed north. I didn't want to go too far because it was already late afternoon, and it would be dark soon.

I pulled off on a side road, and then entered the driveway of the first house I saw. The pickup
 
didn't follow us down the side road. They were satisfied with knowing where we "lived" and headed back. What a bunch of knuckleheads.

We waited a few minutes then
 
drove south toward Wal-Mart. We circled around downtown again. It was still smoky over there, but it didn't look like any other buildings were burning.