Shadows Have Gone (2 page)

“But they send you off on these long trips all by yourself with no definite schedule.”

“No, I . . . they’ll expect me back soon, if that’s what you mean.” Dawson’s eyes darted from face to face. “They’ll come looking for me if I don’t come back.”

“So, in other words, don’t kill you if we don’t want trouble.” Justin’s mouth twisted in a wry smile.

Dawson swallowed. “Yeah. Um. Something like that.”

“I think you should kill him.”

Justin turned around to face the kid they’d found in Clayton. He’d come up out of the ditch on Mindy and Stan’s side. His face was pale, and he had a rock clutched tight in his hand.

“That so?” Justin’s tone was casual, as though they were talking about inviting Dawson for dinner.

“Yeah.” The kid pointed with the hand that held the rock. “He’ll be able to lead the others right back here.”

Justin shrugged. “Nowhere near home, so who cares?”

Everyone had the brains not to correct him.

Dawson shifted his weight on his feet. “Look, I’ll . . . uh . . . I’ll tell the guys I promised not to say anything about your location if you let me go.”

Justin laughed. “Your commander is a fucking moron if he’d abide by that. But make no mistake—you come after me and mine, you’d better be backed by more than a bunch of mechanics from Louisville playing dress-up in fatigues.”

Dawson went pale. It wasn’t Justin’s words, and it wasn’t his tone. He was smiling, and his words sounded playful. It was the murderous glint in his obsidian-hard eyes. “T-take whatever you want from the truck, okay?”

Justin rolled his eyes and lowered his gun. “We’re not robbing you. Go on. Get the fuck out of here.”

“Listen.” Dawson licked his lips. “They may want to talk to you guys.” He glanced at the gathered group around the truck.

Pearl slung her rifle over her shoulders. “I’d imagine so.”

“Is there . . . uh . . . any way we can contact you?” Dawson swallowed visibly, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Really, just talk. I mean, we’re not . . .” His voice faded away, and he didn’t seem to know what he wanted to say.

Justin considered. “This spot. I’ll check it once every couple of weeks or so. You can leave a message for us here. Now, go. Go on. Get out of here.”

“Okay.” Dawson nodded and scurried for the truck. He slammed the door behind him, and Justin burst out laughing when Dawson reached out and swatted the door lock down. He raised his hand in a wave as Dawson drove away, but Dawson didn’t look back. Carly trotted up out of the ditch to Justin’s side.

“That could be a problem.” Stan scratched his chin as he joined them.

“Maybe.” Justin’s eyes were on the truck’s retreating taillights as it disappeared over a low hill. “Depends on a lot of factors.”

“They might be better equipped with weapons than we are if they have a base,” Pearl said. “He was willing to give us his ammo, which may indicate they have a good supply of it.”

“Guns are only as useful as the person pulling the trigger,” Justin said. “A gun is probably more of a danger to that guy than it is to the person he’s trying to point it at.”

“They’re not the army?” Carly asked again, feeling a little foolish but unable to let go of the tiny hope in her heart.

“No, honey, they’re not the army. Not the army we knew, anyway.” He shook his head. “Those guys . . . I don’t know if they’re trying to run a scam or to take over territory by claiming affiliation, but they’re doing it poorly. Dawson’s just a mechanic wearing a scavenged uniform. Maybe they do have a guy who was once army in command, but they’re not the US Army. That’s gone and it’s not coming back. Not for a very long time.”

Carly nodded and swallowed past the lump in her throat. As foolish as it was, for an instant, she’d thought it was all over. An end to the chaos that had descended since the Infection had wiped out the world she’d once known, leaving behind a lawless wasteland, with only their makeshift walls and scavenged guns to protect themselves. The sight of an army truck had been the restoration of America, and she had nearly run to it with open arms. It was the perfect bait for those who still harbored a tiny hope that things could return to what they once were. A land of electricity, and police patrolling the streets, and stores with an abundance of food—a place of schools, and doctors, and courtrooms.

When Justin had hauled her away, it had been a cruel, crushing blow to those hopes, and for a moment, she had been furious with him, as though he had stolen away her chance for normalcy. A chance that never existed in reality. Reality was their little community entrenched behind walls, struggling for every scrap of food and living with the fear another group would overwhelm their defenses and take everything they had.
 

Justin put his arm around Carly’s shoulders. “Let’s go home.”

After the smoke had drawn the truck, Pearl and Stan opted to stay behind in Clayton to begin the process of cleaning up and gathering any useful supplies. Together, they all transported Kross’s body to the burned barn that had been their headquarters during the raid and laid the tarp-shrouded form in the cool shadows.

Carly knelt beside his still form for a moment, her fingers hovering over the tarp. Poor Kross. Carly mourned him. He shouldn’t have died like that. Only seventeen . . .
 

She drew her hand away and stood, blinking hard against the stinging tears. They had known they might suffer losses, but nothing could prepare them for the actuality of it. Stan still couldn’t look her fully in the eye, and she accepted his anger. She felt it herself. What were they doing bringing a seventeen-year-old boy into this mess?

Carly hadn’t been close with Kross, but her adopted son, Kaden, was his best friend, and he’d take this hard. Kaden had already seen far too much death in his young life. The Infection had taken his family, his community, the world he had known. And now his best friend had been killed trying to defend their home from a gang of predators that roamed the wasteland, devouring everything in their path. The only consolation she could offer him was that those parasites wouldn’t hurt anyone else. Kross had given his life to protect their home and any other people these predators might have come across in the future.

Stan insisted Mindy go with Justin and Carly’s group to Colby. Mindy protested, but Stan silenced her with a kiss.

“Go on, honey,” he said. “People will want to see you to know you’re all right.”

“Well, what about you?”

He smiled. “You can tell them. Go on.”

“You’re just sending me back because I’m pregnant,” she grumbled.

“Yep, that’s true.” Stan gave her a wink. “I am delighted to have an excuse to be overprotective now, and everyone will be on my side.” Since Mindy was only the second woman they knew of to get pregnant since the Infection, she was priceless to all of them.

“Pregnancy is not a disability!”
 

Mindy looked like she was ready to stomp her foot in frustration. Carly sympathized, because she had an overprotective husband herself, but as Stan had predicted, she was on his side. Mindy really did need to stay home.

“I know, but you do need more rest,” Stan said. “A pregnant woman doesn’t need the stress and strain of lugging around bodies in this heat.”

Putting it so bluntly made her flinch a little, but Mindy still opened her mouth to argue.

Stan shook his head and cut her off. “We know you’re willing to do your part. No one thinks you’re shirking. Think of the baby. Don’t you think he or she would like a little bit of calm and quiet after what we just went through?”

That got through to her. Mindy paused for just a moment and then nodded. Stan kissed her again and gave her a little push. Mindy scowled at him but gave him a quick hug and followed Carly and Justin down the road. Austin walked a few paces behind them, a silent shadow. He kept his head down. Not sullen, but quiet. Carly wondered what he was thinking, but his expression gave her no clues. He had been with Marcus’s crew, and she knew it was his youth that made Justin spare him. But Justin must have seen something else that made him think Austin was worthy of bringing home to Colby, to give him a chance to have a good life with them.

Stacy was at the rear of their group, lugging the large tool box that she used as a medical bag. Justin glanced over and offered to carry it for her, and she gratefully accepted.

“Ma’am, I’ll take your backpack,” Austin said to her after she handed over the tool kit.

Stacy blinked in surprise but shrugged it off and handed it to him with a smile of thanks.

Justin caught Carly’s eye and raised a brow as if to say,
“See?”

But Carly knew enough to trust Justin’s judgment if he thought there was something in the kid worth saving.

“I guess I feel better that we’re not leaving Kross alone,” Mindy said. “That bothered me a little, when we were all going to go before. I know that nothing would . . . bother him, but it still didn’t sit right with me, leaving him behind like that.”

“It’s just his shell,” Justin said. “He’s not there anymore.”

“I know, but . . .”

Justin nodded. “I understand. It’s about your respect for him.”

Mindy relaxed a little. “Yes.” She bit her lip. “Justin, I feel like I need to tell you . . . Stan isn’t really angry at you and Carly.”

“It’s okay if he is,” Carly said. “Really. He said something to me about it right after we found out Kross was . . . he said he sort of needed to be angry. I understand that. He needs some time before he can deal with it, and anger can be useful for that. And maybe we deserve it. We brought a teenaged boy into battle.”

“In another time and place, he might have been considered a fully adult man capable of fighting for his homeland,” Justin said.

“In another time, or in
this
time?”

“This time, too,” Justin said. “I think maturity is something we’re going to have to reconsider now, too. I thought Kross was mature enough to come with us. I still believe he was. He was skilled, and he knew what he was getting into. He knew there was always the chance he wouldn’t be coming back, and he accepted that. Had a knack for explosives that I haven’t seen since—” Justin shook his head. “I’m sorry as hell for his loss. You don’t know how sorry. But I don’t regret bringing him. If Stan needs to be pissed at me and Carly until he can sort out his shit, I’m okay with that.”

“So, what now?” Mindy stuffed her hands into her pockets.

“We go home. Show them we’re okay. Tell them a little about the battle so they can be assured that they’re safe now and can settle back into their everyday routines. We get some tools and the horse and wagon and return to Clayton to finish the job. Scavenge what food and weapons we can, though I doubt there will be much. Then we head back home.”

“Where will we bury Kross?”

“There are cemeteries outside of town.”

“What about the place where the church used to be?” Mindy asked. “There’s that open lot that—”

“No,” Carly and Justin said at the same time.

They glanced at one another, and it was Justin who continued. “The nearest cemetery is about half a mile away. There’s a little church there where we could have the funeral. We should do it there. I don’t think . . . I don’t think we should put anyone else in town.”

“Anyone else?” Mindy asked. She didn’t know about Tom and Cynthia’s graves in the lot beside the place where the church used to be. Carly was the only one who knew Justin had buried them there, although he didn’t know she was aware of it. She had only learned of it after hearing him sitting there talking to them one day and realized what the little tree with the ring of stones around it represented. It was a secret she let him keep.

Justin didn’t answer Mindy’s question. He stared straight ahead as though he hadn’t heard her. Mindy gave a small frown but decided not to press him. Carly was grateful.

They were heading overland instead of following the roads, cutting across low hills and around the swampy areas, through yards and fallow fields going to brush. Some of the abandoned houses and barns they passed were now no more than mounds of vegetation, swallowed up by the kudzu and cat’s claw vines that quickly overgrew anything if left untended, including the cars in the driveways. Only a window or a corner of a roof poked out here and there to remind them what it had once been. The telephone poles looked like trees, top-heavy with wads of plant matter. Vines twined outward around the wires, which would break under the weight within a few years.