Slowly We Rot (4 page)

Noah spent little time outside
the rest of the day, emerging only when he needed to visit the outhouse.  He
sat on the sofa, smoked weed, and stared at the dead TV screen for hours, his
thoughts unfocused and drifting much of the time.  Now and then one of the many
hurtful things Aubrey had said to him would flit through his mind, but he
always let the words fly away without examining them too closely.  A fair
amount of turmoil was happening below the surface, stirring up a number of
troubling issues he would undoubtedly have to confront later, but, with the aid
of the weed, he was able to keep it all submerged for a while.

          At first he figured the
hiding away was a symptom of depression brought on by the revelation that the
sibling he’d long assumed dead hated him.  Later in the day, after he’d set
aside the pipe and allowed his head to clear, he realized the larger reason was
fear.  His mind kept returning to the crack of that rifle and the accompanying
sound of the bullet taking out a chunk of the support beam.  Despite his
sister’s intimation that he wouldn’t be killed so long as he stayed in the area
right around his cabin, Noah couldn’t help feeling apprehensive.

          Aubrey had changed
drastically during her long time away.  She was mean and vindictive now, a far
cry from the sweet teenager he remembered.  There was nothing but blackness in
her heart where he was concerned.  He tried to imagine her mellowing over time,
maybe even eventually letting go of her anger, but he just couldn’t do it.  It
was far easier to imagine the man named Nick returning at any random time to
fire another bullet from the woods.

          The fear eased somewhat
the next day.  He even spent a good chunk of that morning and afternoon sitting
out on the porch.  This was the defiant part of his personality asserting
itself after a day spent cowering inside like a frightened animal.  The fear
wasn’t completely gone.  An urge to go back inside and lock the door behind him
recurred numerous times.  But he fought through it, trying his best to project
an air of unconcerned nonchalance to anyone who might be watching.

          After a while, however,
he decided it was time to tend to some other things.  He did some work in the
garden, then he pulled up some water from the well and filled several plastic
milk jugs.  He took the jugs into the kitchenette and stored them in the
refrigerator, which, without power, essentially functioned as a large cupboard
or pantry.  Next he did an assessment of his food supply and concluded he’d have
to go on a hunt again soon.

          On a shelf in Noah’s cabin
were several books on off-the-grid living.  These had belonged to his father. 
Noah had read them cover to cover, teaching himself the art of preserving meat
through smoking and curing.  It was a skill that had served him well during his
years alone, at least as much as the lessons his father had taught him.  There
had been a feeling of pride and accomplishment in managing to do it
successfully.  It helped, of course, that searches of cabins in the area turned
up a wealth of the materials necessary to do it properly.

          The idea of going on a
hunt appealed to him for more than the practical reasons.  It would be a way of
taking his mind off the things troubling him.  Thinking about food and the
impending hunt made him hungry, so he opened the fridge and took out a
container of homemade jerky.  He was chewing on a strip of it when he heard the
knock at the front door.

          Noah set the jerky
aside, picked up the rifle, and went to the window by the door.  A tall, burly
man in frayed military garb was on the porch.  He had a rifle slung over his
shoulder by a strap.  He had a thick beard and a lot of scraggly, greasy hair. 
There was a tattoo on his right bicep, but it was too faded to discern details
from the window.  This had to be Nick.  Seeing a second living person in as
many days after all this time was surreal and for some moments Noah couldn’t
help studying him, much as he would a curious specimen of wildlife.  But then
he remembered that this was the man who’d fired at his cabin and felt a surge
of fury.

          He unlocked the door
and yanked it open, aiming the muzzle of his rifle dead-center at the man’s
face.  “The fuck do you want?”

          The man seemed
strangely unfazed at having a firearm pointed at the spot right between his
eyes, his expression conveying neither fear nor anger.  “Please lower the
weapon, son.  I’m not here to hurt you.  I just want to talk.”

          “Yeah, right.  You need
to get off my property.”  Noah gestured with a tilt of his chin.  “Go on, man. 
Get the fuck out of here.”

          The man sighed heavily,
sounding as weary as he looked.  “I really just want to talk.  Look, if I
wanted to kill you, you’d be dead already.  I know you’ve got no reason to
trust me.  I get that.  But I’m here because your sister wanted me to deliver a
message.”

          “Great.  Tell me what
it is and go.”

          The man heaved another
of those bone-weary sighs.  “We really should sit down and talk.  Believe it or
not, I’m no threat to you, but your sister is another story.  We need to talk
about her and what’s gonna happen going forward.  If it makes you feel any
better, I’ll set aside my weapons.”

          Before Noah could
reply, his visitor had unslung his rifle and set it against the porch rail.  Next
he removed a utility belt and set it in the rocking chair.  He pulled up the
leg of his faded uniform trousers and removed a pistol from an ankle holster. 
The handgun joined the belt on the rocking chair.

          “There,” the man said,
once the process of disarming himself was complete.  “I’m defenseless.  Now can
we have a civilized discussion?”

          Noah regarded him
intently over the sight of his rifle a moment longer, still not fully trusting
the man or his intentions.  The thing that finally swayed him was how placid his
demeanor remained in the face of Noah’s open hostility.  Maybe he was a master
of deception and would suddenly strike the moment Noah let his guard down, but
he didn’t think so.  Besides, he was curious to hear another perspective on his
sister’s state of mind.

          He lowered the rifle
and waved the man inside.  “Have a seat at the table.”

          The man nodded and entered
the cabin.  He went into the kitchenette, pulled a chair back from the table,
and sat down.

          Noah sat across from
him, balancing the rifle in his lap.  He kept his expression neutral as he gave
Aubrey’s friend another look of silent appraisal, looking more closely at the
tattered green tank top he was wearing.  Emblazoned across the front were the
letters USMC.  But both the shirt and the camo pants he was wearing looked
loose.  Noah guessed they were at least a size too large.  “Were you really in
the marines or did you swipe the gear from a dead man?”

          The man shifted
sideways in the chair and turned his arm to give Noah a good look at the faded
ink of the old tattoo on his right bicep, which depicted the globe, eagle, and
anchor insignia of the marines.  “Satisfied?”

          Noah shrugged.  “I
guess.  No reason to have the ink if you weren’t the real thing once upon a
time.  I’m curious, though.  Why still wear the uniform after all these years?”

          “In this world, a man
needs every edge he can get.  Even after all this time, the uniform suggests
authority and people reflexively defer to authority, whether they mean to or
not.  It helps, believe me, even if it looks baggy on me now.”  A tired smile
briefly touched the corners of his mouth.  “Blame that on the Apocalypse Diet. 
Now let’s talk about your sister.”

          Noah shrugged.  “Fine. 
But first, how about we have a drink?”

          “What kind of drink?”

          “Bourbon.”

          “That’ll work.”

          Noah got up and propped
the rifle in a corner by the back door.  He opened a cupboard and took down two
whiskey glasses and a bottle of Maker’s Mark.  The cupboard’s top shelf was
crammed with extra bottles.  There were even more bottles in the cellar, a lot
more, pilfered loot from abandoned neighboring cabins.  He’d transported the
booze to his place years ago, powerless against a compulsion to stockpile the
stuff despite having abstained since before the apocalypse.

          Even after the very
long dry period, he remained wary of imbibing again, fearful it would trigger a
recurrence of old problems.  But so many of those problems were rooted in old
world circumstances that no longer applied.  And this was a situation that
called for whiskey, a thing he understood on a gut level.

          Noah set the glasses on
the table, poured two fingers of bourbon into each, put the bottle in the
middle of the table, and sat back down.

          The man picked up one
of the glasses and sipped from it.  “Good stuff.  Thank you.”

          “You’re welcome.”

          “I’m Nick, by the way.”

          Noah nodded.  “You know
my name, I guess.”

          Nick picked up his
glass again, taking another small sip.  “Yeah, you’re Noah.  I’ve heard plenty
about you these last few months.”

          Noah grimaced.  “I can
imagine.”

          “Let’s get something
straight right off the bat,” Nick said, leaning forward and bracing his elbows
on the edge of the table.  “Your sister’s anger is misplaced and unfair.  I know
that.  There’s no way you could have come to her rescue.  That’s the common
sense side of it, the absolute truth, you and I know that, but your sister…” 
Nick shrugged.  “Look, I’ve got no plans to hurt you.  If Aubrey asks me to
kill you, well, I just ain’t gonna do it.  I was humoring her yesterday with
the warning shot business, but that’s as far as that goes.  And, shit, man, if
it were up to me, we might even become friends, maybe get together now and then
and work on drinking up all your bourbon.”

          Noah spent a few
moments digesting all this before saying, “But it’s not up to you.”

          Nick shook his head. 
“It’s not.”

          Noah knocked back the bourbon
in his glass and poured some more.  “Why do I get the feeling Aubrey’s message
is some kind of ultimatum?”

          “She wants you to
leave.  Doesn’t care where you go, just as long as it’s somewhere far away from
here.”

          “This is different from
what she told me yesterday.”

          A pained look crossed
Nick’s face.  “Yeah, well, I think seeing and talking to you again got her all
riled up.  She thinks you’ve got a sweet set-up here and wants to claim it for
herself.”

          “I’ve worked hard to
make this place what it is.  She’s got no right to it.”

          “I don’t disagree,
son.”  Nick pushed back from the table and folded his arms.  “In a fair
situation, I’d suggest sharing some of the wealth with us.  After all, you’ve
had a big head start on us in terms of scavenging the area and hoarding
supplies.  I’m sure you’re a fair-minded person and might even be okay with an
arrangement like that.  The problem is that Aubrey’s not interested in sharing. 
And like I said, I won’t kill you for her, but I can’t stop her from taking
matters into her own hands.”

          “You really think she’d
kill me?  My own sister?”

          Nick’s expression
turned grave.  “I think she might, yeah.”

          Noah fell silent for a
long stretch of moments.  He picked up the whiskey glass and held it in his
lap, squinting at the amber fluid inside it as if he could divine answers from
its depths.  As he looked into the glass, a smile formed at the edges of his
mouth.  And then he laughed.  He was still staring into the glass when he
sensed Nick’s façade of perfect calm finally slip a little.

          “Something funny, kid?”

          Noah looked up from the
glass.  “What are you to my sister, Nick?  Exactly, I mean.  Are you just a
benevolent traveling companion and protector, or are you fucking her?”

          A corner of Nick’s
mouth twitched and his eyes narrowed, betraying a hint of something truly
dangerous lurking behind them for the first time.  “Watch your mouth, son.”

          Noah’s own expression
hardened.  “You’re, what, somewhere in your forties?  Aubrey’s only just turned
twenty-one.  And, yes, I remembered her birthday, because I’m her goddamned
flesh and blood.  That’s an unbreakable bond, no matter what she thinks. 
You’re just some sleazy old predator taking advantage of her because she thinks
she doesn’t have any other options.”

          Nick abruptly stood up
from the table.  His jawline quivered as he glared down at Noah, nostrils
flaring as he appeared to be building toward some kind of explosion.  But then
he blew out a breath and shook his head.  “You’re upset, and I’m not gonna let
you goad me into doing something I’ll regret.  You’re not wrong about your
sister and me, Noah, but I’m no predator.  You can believe that or not, I don’t
give a shit.  It’s a different world out there.  Not a damn one of us has any
good options anymore.  Aubrey wants you out of here by sundown tomorrow.  If I
were you, I’d be gone by then.”