Hungry Independents (Book 2) (10 page)

Solitary farmhouses were easy pickings. Small
towns and cities had been avoided for two reasons: diseases and
gangs. Rotting bodies had left behind the diseases. Gangs had
formed for protection and would attack anybody stupid enough to
stray close. Almost seven years since the plague, neither disease
nor gangs posed a threat anymore. Both met up with the same fate:
time. Bodies decomposed, leaving nothing infectious behind. Gangs
learned how to survive for themselves or disbanded.

Scout carved a path to a farmhouse through
the high native grass. He killed the engine by the porch before
slipping his water bottle out of his bag and taking a big guzzle.
This house used to have baby furniture and a sewing machine that
had been acquired last year for his nephew and Ginger. Scout leaned
his bike against the railing and went inside to browse.

Light followed him through the door, casting
his shadow into the interior. The last time he visited this place
was in the cold of winter, but now the August heat stifled his
lungs. Sweat beaded along his skin. He pushed the curtains apart to
allow sunshine through the dusty glass panes. Then he opened the
windows, giving the heat passage outside. A couple of panes refused
to slide without a fight. Scout won most of the battles and soon a
breeze found its way inside.

Dusty furniture was pushed aside at funny
angles from a barren spot. Scout remembered the rug that occupied
the empty space. The rug he had rolled up, took home, and placed in
his room. The rug, which had burned after its first night when
Molly torched his house after Hunter broke her heart.

If Scout was hoping to find something to
cheer him up, following that line of memories was not the way. He
left the living room and climbed upstairs to the baby’s room. A
wallpaper border surrounded him on all sides with a yellow bear in
a red sweater, a little pink pig, and a tiger bouncing on his tail.
Forgotten toys lay scattered across the floor. Scout poked through
the pile and retrieved a Jack in the Box, a stuffed Elmo doll, and
one of those toys that made various barnyard animal noises. He
loaded the toys in his backpack for Ginger, knowing she’d
appreciate the gifts when the baby came. He cursed himself for
thinking it would somehow make up for Jimmy’s death.

“I didn’t get Jimmy killed,” he said to the
empty room then finished stuffing his bag. He zipped it closed. “I
didn’t,” he said, softer.

In his dark mood, Scout stalked over to the
closet and opened the accordion-style door. Clothes hung on the
bar, and stuffed animals were propped into one corner opposite a
box. Scout drug out the box and slit through the tape with his
pocketknife. His heart quickened and his smile grew wide when he
saw the contents.

He reached in and pulled out the Boy Scout
uniform. An American flag was sewn on the shoulder and the green
troop number, 17, was sewn under the Nebraskan Council patch. Scout
gently touched the eagle patch sewn on the front pocket, like it
might shock him, and then he started jumping around the room.

“I found one! I found one! Yes, yes, yes!
That’s right! It’s all mine!”

Scout slipped his arms into the khaki sleeves
and straightened the collar around his neck. The oversized shirt
engulfed him but that was just fine. Plenty of room to grow.

He reached deeper into the box and found the
blue scarf and neck slide. He dug farther and felt patches attached
to something else. Then he pulled out the olive sash covered with
thirty-three merit badges stitched in orderly rows. Some he
recognized immediately, especially the eagle-required ones circled
with silver thread: First Aid, Citizenship in the Community Nation
and World,
http://scouting.org/boyscouts/advancementandawards/meritbadges/mb-COMM.aspx
Personal
Fitness, Emergency Preparedness, Environmental Science, Personal
Management, Swimming, Camping, and Family Life.

He touched each one with loving reverence and
thought about the lucky kid who earned all these at summer camps,
ceremonies and celebrations that Scout had dreamed about since
finding his Boy Scout handbook.

A library lay at the bottom of the box,
containing a well-used Boy Scout handbook like the one Scout kept
in his backpack at all times, and twenty or so merit badge books,
ranging from American Business to Woodwork. Scout had struck
gold.

He rolled the blue scarf and draped it around
the back of his neck, holding it in place with the eagle emblem
metal slide. He looped the olive-green merit badge sash across his
chest. He tucked the shirttail into his cargo pants, looked around
the room—no mirror.

He dashed into the hallway and opened the
next door he crossed. The bathroom. He pushed open the window to
bring more light inside. He stood at attention and stared at his
reflection as sweat ran down his face. Nothing could banish his
bright smile.

When the reality of his discovery struck,
Scout took to a knee right there on the linoleum and prayed.

“Thank you, God, so much for this Boy Scout
uniform. I know I probably don’t deserve it, but thank you for
giving this to me, and I promise to show my faith in all my actions
and words. Thank you, God. Thank you so much. Thank you for the
many, many blessings. Thank you, God. Amen.”

Scout stayed on his knees, repeating his
prayer until the tears came and he sobbed without knowing why.
Scout wept until he shed every emotion he possessed, and then he
left the bathroom without looking at himself again.

He went back into the baby’s room to
inventory his find. There was one thing missing that he wanted. He
pulled the olive green pants and belt out of the box and the worn
olive socks. He set a stack of Boys’ Life magazines next to his
growing pile on the floor.

The last thing in the bottom was a wooden
box. Opening the lid, he found all the patches of rank that came
before eagle. Everything but the one thing Scout really wanted: the
medal that a Boy Scout earned when he achieved the rank of eagle.
He rifled through the contents of the wooden box until satisfied
that it wasn’t there. It wasn’t in the larger box either.

Scout stood and scratched his head. The baby
hadn’t earned this stuff. His father had saved his scouting
experience to share with his son one day.

He walked down the hall and opened a
different door leading to another familiar room. This once held the
sewing supplies that Scout had given to Ginger. A quick but
thorough search brought no medal.

He turned to the last door upstairs and
remembered the haunted look on Mark’s face. He told Scout not to go
in. Scout had listened then, but now was different. Now he needed
to find something. Scout needed it more than whatever horror waited
for him behind that door.

Scout opened the door. The trapped heat
sucked the air out of his lungs again. Sunlight outlined the
perimeter of curtained windows. Scout spread the curtains and
opened the windows. He breathed in the cool air outside and
turned.

Three dried husks lie on the bed. Father and
mother rested in peace with their little boy between them.

Scout pounded the wall in blind rage as a
fresh supply of tears filled his eyes. “Damn you, Chase!”

He circled the room, looking in the dresser
and the armoire—furniture that appeared to be antiques from a
different era. He wasn’t finding it. So he opened the closet and
ripped through the contents, overtaken by madness to find the
medal. Scout faced the nightstand next to the man, thinking if he
had worked hard to earn something so special he’d keep it right
beside him till death.

He forced himself to ignore the nightmare
lying a few feet away, then he filtered through the dust buildup on
the nightstand. On the surface, there was an empty glass, the man’s
watch, wallet, and keys, an alarm clock, a mystery novel, a bible,
but no medal. The single drawer contained papers, greeting cards
from forgotten Christmases and birthdays, an old comic book, a box
of condoms, pictures, a pocketknife, ear plugs, a plastic deer
call, a stopwatch, loose change, but no eagle medal.

Scout breathed deeply and turned his head. He
looked at the man, decayed beyond recognition. Faded clothing
contained whatever was left after rot destroyed the man’s body. No
medal.

The plague did not kill children. The plague
only killed those who were eighteen or older. Scout was afraid to
think about what killed this child. Afraid to think about what this
child experienced before it succumbed to death. He looked at the
boy and his heart shattered into a million pieces.

Inside the boy’s tiny grip lay the eagle
medal that Scout coveted, with its red, white and blue ribbon.

Scout rubbed his dry mouth slowly.

He reached out.

He stopped.

The husk of the dead kid lay curled between
his dead parents.

Scout hadn’t earned this man’s badge. He
wasn’t worthy to take the one thing this little boy had held onto
in death.

Scout grabbed a gym bag from the closet and
hurried to the child’s room. He removed the uniform and packed all
of the Boy Scout stuff inside the bag. Wearing his own backpack
once again, he carried the gym bag downstairs to his bike and
secured it to the end of his seat and rode away, leaving the eagle
medal behind where it belonged. Maybe someday he would earn his
own.

Scout rode underneath the afternoon sun that
covered him like an extra blanket. Halfway home, he shook off the
tension and sadness, his excitement growing from the recent
discovery. Scout reached back, assuring himself that the gym bag
was still fastened down and still very real—the contents of his
dreams packed safely inside.

He reduced speed when he arrived in town and
turned onto the cobbles of Main Street where a crowd had gathered
outside Luis’s clinic. He parked the Suzuki and unstrapped the gym
bag. The crowd would keep until Scout secured his treasure inside
his apartment. Besides, Raven would know if something important was
going on.

Scout climbed the steps two at a time and
opened the door. He walked inside, ready to show off his awesome
Boy Scout shirt to his girlfriend.

Raven turned from the window, eyes rimmed
red. “Where have you been?”

Surprised by her harsh tone, Scout set the
gym bag on the table. “I went for a ride. What’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong? Samuel came over here to check
on you. He said some guy was giving you a hard time. I hadn’t seen
you since you took off in the middle of the night. I didn’t know
what to tell him.”

Scout hurried over and sat beside her. She
flinched when he touched her arm. He settled his hand in his lap,
thinking that this wasn’t like Raven at all. “I’m sorry. I should
have told you where I was going.”

“Yes, you should have.” She turned back
toward the window and ignored him.

Scout waited, wondering how to make things
right and wishing he could break out his new stuff and show it off.
The crowd mingled in front of Luis’s and Dylan looked up at Scout’s
window. Scout thought about closing the blinds, but decided he just
didn’t care right now. Then he noticed the pile of toys, baby
clothes and flowers propped against the front of the clinic.

“Ginger had the baby?”

Raven sighed, her whole body rising with the
effort. “About an hour ago. It’s a boy. She called him James.”
Raven used a white handkerchief to blow her nose. “Samuel told
me.”

“I missed another birth. I should go down
there and offer a blessing to Ginger and little James.” Scout
smiled. “James! That’s fantastic!”

“I’ve wanted to go down there all morning,
but not without you.”

“Why didn’t you just go on down there by
yourself?”

Raven spun her head around, startling Scout
with the glint in her eyes. “Because I’ve been an outcast ever
since we got back from Denver. No one talks to me, other than your
sister, Molly and Ginger. Everyone else in this town acts like I’m
not even here.”

“That’s crazy,” Scout said. Her hard look
indicated he’d chosen the wrong word. “I mean, I’m sure everyone is
still getting to know you.”

“I’ve been living here for almost a year now.
We’re way past introductions, but I still feel like a stranger in
this place.”

Raven was blowing the situation out of
proportion. Scout knew she was having a hard time making friends,
ever since she’d first arrived as the enemy. But she had proven her
loyalty by taking them to Denver and helping rescue Catherine.

Scout had an irritating thought. He looked
out the window and watched Dylan laugh with his group of
buddies—the hunting and fishing crowd. Billy huddled with them,
smiling along with the boys. Dylan patted him on the shoulder.

Scout stood up. “Let’s go. We should go see
how Ginger and the baby are doing.”

Raven’s face brightened and she blew her nose
again. “I’m a mess.”

“Yes.” Scout smiled at her frown. “But you’re
my mess.”

She hopped up and punched him in the stomach.
Luckily, Scout anticipated her favorite target and tightened his
gut in time.

“Impressive,” she said.

“I hope you didn’t break your hand.”

That brought a smile. “Hardly. I need to fix
my face before we go.” She left for their bedroom, where she kept
the face fixing tools.

“Okay, but we don’t have all day.” Scout
chuckled until a familiar white object with blue stripes whizzed
past his head. “Hey, that’s my pillow!”

“Leave it on the couch. You’ll need it later.
What’s in that bag you brought in?”

Scout’s excitement rushed back. “Oh! You’re
not going to believe what I found! It’s incredible!” He ran over
and unzipped the gym bag.

Raven returned, wiping her face with a damp
washcloth. “It’s not another baseball glove, is it?”