The Remaining: Fractured (24 page)

Angela looked behind them. There was no one around and the closest shanty was over twenty yards away. When she found Jenny’s eyes again, she spoke deliberately and quietly. “What were you told? What’d they say happened in the office?”

Jenny put her hand to her chest as a freezing wind knifed at their skin. “They never came out and said anything. I heard that Bus lost it, tried to hold you hostage when he saw Jerry coming to take over. But Jerry was able to get him away from you and then had to kill him.”

Angela didn’t think her eyes could stretch any wider. The wind sucked the warmth and the moisture out of her mouth as it hung open. “Are you serious?”

“Look, I’m no big fan of Jerry,” Jenny whispered. “But I’m glad he saved you…”

“Jenny! None of that happened!”

“What?”

“It didn’t happen like that!” Angela rubbed her face. Her eyebrows knit together in a combination of disbelief and anger. “Bus never held me captive! Bus was the one that convinced me to surrender when I was getting ready to shoot it out with them!”

Jenny shook her head. “Oh, Angela…”

“Why do you think they held me prisoner?”

“I thought it was just to make sure that…well, I don’t know.”

Angela was close to snapping. “Whose side are you on right now, Jenny?”

Jenny reached out and touched her arm. “You’re my friend. I’m here for you.”

Angela put a hand to her mouth and looked away as she felt her eyes starting to burn. Bus’ murder flashed through her brain, memories she didn’t want but that had been erected like murals on the walls of her mind. And then Jerry’s words, once more, whispered in her ear with hot, malicious breath:
those men that do things for me might find you, Angela. Maybe in the middle of the night when you’re snug in your bed, cradling your daughter…

Jenny bent close. “What happened in there?”

Angela sniffed, wiped her hand off on her jacket, and forced a brave face. “Nevermind. Forget I said anything.” She shifted her weight. “I’ve got to get this jacket sewn back up. But after that, do you need any help at the medical trailer? I need to get back to work doing something.”

Jenny watched her friend for a long time before nodding. “Yeah. I could always use the help.” She swept stray hair behind her ears. “We’re hurting, Angela. We’ve run out of meds, and it looks like this cold or flu thing is just getting started with us. I’ve got three people with full-blown pneumonia right now, and I’ve got no way to solve it. I don’t…” She didn’t finish her thought.

“Ladies!”

Angela and Jenny turned towards the shanties, saw Greg standing there, his thumbs stuck in the pockets of his ratty jeans, his eyes narrowed suspiciously. Angela’s heart felt like it had exploded in her chest and immediately she began to formulate explanations for what they were doing whispering in this quiet corner of camp.

Jenny actually managed a smiled. “Hey, Greg.”

Greg let the silence stretch uncomfortably, situated his old Yankee’s ball cap on his head, then jerked a thumb back towards The Square. “Jerry’s callin’ a town meeting. Wants everybody to meet up at The Square so we can talk stuff out.”

“Okay,” Jenny nodded.

Angela seethed, but kept her mouth shut.

Town meeting? Town meeting? Like he’s the fucking mayor? Like he’s running this place?

Greg winked. “Message delivered. See you there.”

***

Angela and Jenny made their way through the rows of huts to The Square where a crowd had already gathered and Jerry stood on the tailgate of a pickup truck, smiling cordially and greeting people by name, bending down to shake hands and slap shoulders.

Angela stood on tiptoe to try to see over the heads of the others.
Where’s Abby? Where’s Sam?

There were a few children in the crowd, but not the usual amount.

Maybe they’re still off playing.

She tried to listen for the sounds of the children’s soccer game, but couldn’t hear over the bubbling murmur of voices all around her. She found the face of another woman she knew had children. She reached through a wall of bodies to touch her arm and get her attention.

The woman turned to look at Angela, and her face immediately soured.

Angela ignored it. “Hey, are the kids still playing soccer?”

The woman nodded. “Last I saw. Why?”

Angela smiled. “Nothing. Just being a mother.”

The woman quirked a brow haughtily and turned away.

And Angela grit her teeth and thought,
Didn’t I bring you food and extra blankets? Didn’t I make sure that you had medicine for your snot-nosed brats? Didn’t Lee and his team find the children’s cough syrup for you that kept your son from getting pneumonia?

What a bitch.

Never did like her.

Jerry raised up his hands for quiet and cleared his throat loudly. “Thanks for comin’ out so quick, folks. I know we all got jobs to tend to, and I’ll make this brief.” His eyes panned over the gathering. “It’s been a few days since we were able to take back control of Camp Ryder, and since then we’ve successfully ended the senseless waste of our precious resources. We’re no longer burning through the things that will keep us alive, because we’re not trying to convince other groups of survivors to be friends with us.”

There was a mild round of applause.

Angela bit her tongue, wondering if he was going to bring up the lack of medicine.

Or maybe that’s what he wants. Maybe he wants us to have to rely on him.

“There’s been no contact yet from Captain Harden,” he continued. “I know that there are those of you that are still here that want to think the best of Captain Harden, but I think the facts are obvious at this point in time: Captain Harden abandoned us. I’m not sure why, but we haven’t heard from him or his comrade, this Captain Tomlin guy. But you know what?” Jerry smiled kindly. Bravely. “We don’t need them. We’ve got a tough road ahead of us. But it’s a road that’s safer than the one we were on before, I can tell you that much. It’s safer than the road that Captain Harden and Bus put us on, that’s for damn sure. We’re no longer forcing people to go outside our fortifications to find other groups of survivors, and then force you folks already living here to share your food and water and living space! We’re no longer cramming ourselves into this place like sardines!” He smiled. “And speaking of fortifications, over the last few days we’ve managed to build up over half of the fence—a job that should have been completed a long time ago.”

More applause. Enthusiastic this time.

“So you folks are more secure at Camp Ryder now than you’ve been for the past four months. But all that security doesn’t do us a lot of good if we leave the gates open, so to speak. If we constantly have people coming and going, we not only draw attention from God knows what beyond those fences, but we expose ourselves to attack.” He paused for a moment, found Angela and stared at her, the slightest of smirks on his lips. “I know this might not be a popular decision, but I believe it’s a necessary one. Necessary to keep us safe, and to keep our children safe.”

You don’t have any fucking children,
Angela thought.

Jerry motioned to Greg, who stood beside him. “You all know Greg. You know the good work he does, and I know that most of you have trusted him to get you whatever you need out there. He’s a good scavenger, and he’s always looked out for us. I know that none of you will have a problem trusting him. And that’s why I’ve decided that Greg and his team are going to take over all scavenging operations for Camp Ryder.”

There was a rumble through the crowd, not negative, not positive, just confused.

“I know there are a lot of you that like to take care of yourself, and that’s good. That’s a good thing. But in these trying times, we have to be so careful how we act as individuals, because of the harm it might bring to the group. And I think we all agree, that none of us would’ve made it very long without the group. We’re strong together. But we need to be safer.

“So, for those of you that like to do your own scavenging, just talk to the others. The guards, the people that work in the medical trailer, and the people that work to mend our clothes. All of these folks put in their hours here at Camp Ryder, and don’t normally venture out there. They know that it’s just as easy to tell Greg what they want, and let him go out and find it. He’s got the experience, and him and a team of two other men are a lot less noticeable than all of us going out, every time we need something.”

Someone raised their hand. “What about hunting?”

“I have a separate group of individuals—experienced hunters—that will go out and hunt when we need them to.”

“What about crops?” Some called. “Since we’re not dealing with any of the other groups of survivors, we’re gonna run out of produce since we can’t trade with them.”

Jerry nodded. “That’s a great question. But I assure you, I’m on it. I’m not gonna let us go hungry. As we speak, I’m arranging for a small group that will help us select certain fields come spring where we will set up special work parties to go and cultivate these areas. We’ve just gotta make sure they’re close by. I don’t want the work party to have to go too far from safety.”

Angela seethed. She burned to raise her hand and demand some answers from Jerry, to put him on the spot and make him explain this asinine decision of his that was made, ostensibly, with the best of intentions. Perhaps it was the cynic in Angela, but she saw something very different than the interests of Camp Ryder’s safety and security. She saw control.

Keep your mouth shut.

But she didn’t need to voice her opinion, because someone else did it for her.

Marie shoved her way to the front of the crowd. Put one hand on her hip, and enumerated with the fingers of the other. “So, let’s see. You’ve got a special scavenging party, a special hunting party, and a special cultivation party. And if the special scavenging party is any indication, I’d have to believe that the hunting party and the cultivation party will be mainly comprised of your close personal friends.” She folded her arms across her chest. “Is there any reason you don’t trust the rest of us to leave? Do you feel like you have to have an eye on us at all times?”

Jerry’s face looked set in stone. His lips pulled together sternly.

Marie just smiled at him. “Oh…pardon me…we used to be able to voice our opinions at these town meetings. I forgot you were in charge.” She bowed her head dramatically, her dark curls tousling. “Please forgive me for speaking out of turn,
mein fuhrer
.”

Jerry’s face turned red for a moment, but then he smiled, the wrinkles in his face oddly bloodless amidst all that angry blush. “I obviously don’t agree with your stance, Marie, and I don’t appreciate the insult. However, I completely understand the position that you’re coming from. This is the way we’ve done things for hundreds of years.” He smiled at the group. “We’re Americans. We like to be independent. We like to be in control of our own destinies, no matter what. And that was all fine and good when we had a government to look after us, armies to protect us. We could afford to be that way in the old world, because the old world wasn’t so damned dangerous—pardon my language.”

Jerry looked at the ground and shook his head, the sage leader. “Believe me, I wish that’s the way things still were. I wish we could all just worry about ourselves. But we’re neighbors now, and that means more today than it meant in the past. It used to mean that your mailbox was next to mine, and that sometimes we’d bicker about whose property the fence was on.” He looked up. “Today, it means something else. It means that I’ve got your back, and I know you’ve got mine. It means that we protect each other from what’s out there. It means that if anything ever happened to you, you’d know that we’d step in and take care of your family. It means that we’re a community. And most importantly, it means that we know…” His face was earnest, almost to the point of tears. “…We
know
…that the group…the community…it’s more important than our personal wants and desires.”

 The crowd backed their leader with a rush of affirmative voices.

“That’s right!”

“You tell ‘em, Jerry!”

“We got your back, Jerry!”

Marie raised her hands, her mouth set in a thin, bitter line. “Again, I beg your forgiveness. You tell me what you need from me, Jerry. We’re here for
you
.”

Jerry took it seriously, though it was obviously meant as a jab. “Thank you, Marie.” He turned back to the crowd. “Folks, I know that there are those among us that are not on board with what we’re trying to do here. And that’s fine. They’ve been doing things a certain way for a while, and it’s hard to change. Give them time. They’ll come around. The proof is in the pudding, and when we stop burying bodies out back behind the building…” he pointed past the big cement structure. “…then they’ll realize we were right all along.”

The crowd cheered.

Marie just turned in disgust and left.

It was not long before Angela followed.

***

A hard kick sent the soccer ball bouncing over bits of gravel and clumps of weeds, then rolled to a stop at the back corner of the big gray Camp Ryder building. Sam watched it roll, then looked back at the other kids, six of them in all, and realized he was the closest.

“I’ll get it,” he called.

He jogged to the back of the building. From where they played soccer, they were a ways away from The Square, but he could still hear the adults talking about things, particularly the guy named Jerry. The guy that Angela and Lee didn’t like. Jerry seemed like an okay guy to Sam, always smiling and shaking people’s hands, but he’d also seen the man with a strange look on his face when he didn’t think anyone was looking, and it made Sam feel like maybe he should stay away from him.

The adults clapped and yelled about something, and Sam looked back in that direction, curious. But he couldn’t see The Square past the Camp Ryder building. Couldn’t tell what all the excitement was about. He wished he could have gone with Angela to see what was going on, rather than playing soccer with the little kids—there was only one other kid his age, and he wasn’t playing soccer right now. But Angela was scared lately. Something to do with Abby, and so he understood that Angela wanted him to watch out for her.