Page 4

FOUR

KITTEN

I made Cipher as comfortable as I could, then had him take some ibuprofen with water before twisting the cap on the bottle of purple liquor and offering it to him. He took a long chug, coughed a little, and handed it back to me.

“What does the MD stand for?” I asked. The label said “red grape wine,” but it wasn’t shaped like a wine bottle.

“Mad Dog.”

I took a sip. It was sickly sweet and thicker than any wine I’d ever tasted. Kind of coated my mouth and lingered on my tongue in an unpleasant way. “Tastes like cough syrup,” I said. I’d only had cough syrup once or twice, but the flavor was similar.

“Yeah, it’s the gateway drug.” He tugged me closer with his good arm. “You’re going to be cold out here without a shirt. I almost popped a boner when you ripped it off and started tearing it into strips. Very butch.”

I grinned, despite our circumstances. “I can do that for you again when we get home.”

“You’re a very hot nurse. Or should I call you Doctor?”

“I’m only a doctor if I have to perform surgery,” I said drolly. What if Cipher’s arm didn’t heal right? If I thought I’d get away with it, I’d drug him and take him to the military base for an X-ray myself, but I couldn’t pull that off without help. If he showed any signs of infection, that’s exactly what we’d be doing. But to argue with him now would just make him more stubborn about it. We were similar in that way.

“Beautiful sunset.” Cipher motioned with the bottle to the display in front of us, softserve swirls of pink and purple amongst the cotton candy clouds. You could always count on Mother Nature to do her thing, even while the rest of the world was falling apart. It was comforting, in a way.

“How are Daisy, Maisy, Pudding, Delilah, and Rose?” Cipher asked, referring to our little flock of fowl, two hens and three ducks. I was pleased that he’d remembered all of their names.

“They’re going to start laying any day now, now that it’s getting warmer outside.” We’d managed to trap the birds in the woods and bring them home. Macon and I had built a chicken coop with Cipher’s help and dug a shallow pond lined with plastic for the ducks to splash around in. We’d been searching for a rooster or a drake to grow our flock, but still no luck.

“Omelets for everyone,” Cipher said, offering the bottle back to me.

“Keep it. You need it more than me.” One of us needed to be on watch tonight, and even though I wasn’t a night owl by nature, I’d determined that it would be me.

Cipher took another long pull. The adrenaline from our fight with the Rabids was starting to wane and his eyelids were drooping. The best thing for him right now would be to rest.

“Come here,” I told him. I sat with my back against the AC unit and motioned him to sit between my legs. There he could lie back against my chest and use my leg as a prop for his arm. “Better?” I asked.

“Yeah, babe. You’re the best.”

“I might try to make some cookies,” I said, picking up on our earlier thread. Dried beans were still in abundance when we scavenged, and I’d read in one of my mother’s cookbooks that some kinds could be ground up to make flour.

“You miss baked goods?” Cipher asked.

“Yeah, I do,” I admitted with some guilt. I’d let food and comfort cloud my vision in Promised Land. We all did.

“We haven’t had bread since Promised Land,” Cipher said, reading my mind.

“Remember when it was still warm and fresh from the oven, and the butter just melted on top of it?” I said as my mouth watered. “And those homemade biscuits?”

“The chicken pot pie was something else,” Cipher agreed. “Too bad their leader was a phony piece of shit.”

Too bad he was dead now, thanks to me. I said a prayer to God, begging for His forgiveness. I could remember the squelching noise of the blade entering Brother Larry’s body. Three times I stabbed him, just like Cipher taught me. What had happened to the rest of Promised Land once their leader had fallen? Despite his ill treatment and the corruption of the Council, I hoped the people living there were okay–Salome, Jason and their baby daughter Rosemary…

“I wonder how Marion’s doing, and the mothers,” I mused. My one regret in leaving Promised Land was having to part ways with her.

Cipher’s face softened at the mention of Marion. “I’d like to say we could ask about her, but I don’t exactly want to advertise that we’ve been to Promised Land, you know?”

“Yeah, I know.” It was a precaution meant to protect me, the same reason Cipher didn’t want the military to question us. He didn’t think I could stick to the story. I wasn’t sure I could either.

“This stuff is pretty awful.” Cipher glanced at the bottle before taking another drink.

“You’re doing Macon a favor.”

“Yeah, I don’t think this is what he had in mind when he said hard liquor.”

“He’s already started making his own anyway. But don’t tell him I told you. He wants it to be a surprise.”

“We can try scavenging another store tomorrow. See if we can find any more stuff on our list,” Cipher said.

“Are you kidding me right now?” I snapped at him. “We are going straight home and fixing your arm.”

He chuckled. “I love it when you get bossy.”

I huffed and squeezed him tighter to me. Idiot.

“You were right,” I said, thinking back to our fight with the Rabids.

“Bout what?” he asked, looking drowsy.

“It’s us versus them.” I’d shot three of them in the head, point-blank, and I’d wanted to kill more. When that Rabid pounced on top of Cipher, I nearly lost my mind.

“I’m sorry it has to be this way,” he said.

“Don’t be. You didn’t create this world. You’re just trying to help us survive it.”

He raised his bottle. “To surviving another day in Rabid Country,” he said, then took a long swig.

“I love you,” I said with my arms wrapped possessively around his chest. I didn’t want to suffocate him, but I needed him to know. “I can’t lose you, Cipher.”

“You won’t, babe. Promise.”

I tried to take comfort in his words. Perhaps it was silly of me, but I wanted us to have a long life together, to continue building our home and taking care of our family, to have a small herd of livestock, maybe even a horse too, and a garden with a fruit orchard. I wanted to make fruit pies and cobblers and experiment with new recipes, see him smile with pleasure as he tried another of my delicious baked goods for the first time. I wanted to watch the seasons change, year after year, for us to both age into mature men with gray hair and wrinkles. To sit on our porch chairs and talk about the weather.

At the very least, I wanted us to live to see our next birthdays.

“We have to be more careful,” I told him.

“We didn’t think they’d be hunting in daylight,” he said, his voice fainter.

“Well, now we know.”

We lapsed into silence and a few minutes later, Cipher was snoring lightly. I took the half-empty bottle from him and capped it before setting it aside. My butt was starting to fall asleep, and the loose gravel beneath me was going to give me bruises, but I didn’t want to move and disturb him, so I stared up at the stars as they slowly winked to life and thanked all my lucky ones that we’d survived the Rabids yet again.

How many more times would we be this lucky? Wouldn’t we be safer inside a military base with plenty of food and soldiers to help protect us?

But maybe that was just another version of Promised Land, where they sacrificed the weakest among them for the greater good. Like Brother Larry and Jeremiah. Yeah, we were better off on our own. I just hated Cipher putting his life at risk every time we needed supplies. One day our luck was going to run out.

And then what?

I blinked my eyes open to find the sky just starting to turn golden, my handsome boyfriend silhouetted by the buttery hue, his black hair crowned with gold as he stood at the edge of the building, looking down. I must have fallen asleep just before dawn–this was why I never got the night shifts–but we had dragged the AC unit over the grate to prevent any Rabids from making it to the roof and thankfully, none had.

I stood up slowly and twisted my shoulders to stretch my back. Everything was stiff and my butt was numb, but at least Cipher had slept some.

“Morning, sunshine,” he said to me with a lopsided grin. “Any ideas on how we get down?”

Fortunately, I’d had most of the night to come up with a solution. I bent over and began untying the laces on my boots.

“I’m not sure your boots will help with this one,” Cipher said, and when I started unbuttoning my pants, he added with a grin, “but I do like where this is going.”

“I’m going to use my jeans as rope to lower you down.”

He squinted, and the frown above his eyes indicated that he had doubts about my plan. “Okay, but what about you? I guess I could try and break your fall,” he said.

“I’ll tie them off to this metal pole and swing down after you.”

“Like Tarzan?” he said.

“Who’s Tarzan?” I asked and he opened his mouth to explain before realizing that I was teasing him.

I peeled off my jeans while Cipher continued to stare. They were slightly damp from the morning chill, but that wouldn’t matter much. I slung them over my shoulder and put my boots back on. They’d been a gift from Cipher when we’d first arrived back in Greenville and had scavenged all the houses in the neighborhood. He said it was important that I have a proper pair of shoes to protect my feet from glass and stray nails. They fit me perfectly.

“Damn, you are fine,” Cipher said. He grabbed hold of me with his one good arm and pulled me in close, kissing me fiercely on the mouth while grabbing my ass and squeezing. His breath still had the sickly sweet taste of the grape wine, too fresh to be from last night.

“Have you been drinking already?” I asked.

“It’s for the pain.”

Well, I’d rather him get a little tipsy than have to suffer. At the edge of the building, I lay on my stomach and dangled the jeans to see how far down they might reach. Good enough.

“Very clever, Kitten,” Cipher said with a note of admiration.

“You’re going to have to hold on tight.” I handed him a leg of the pants to grip with his one good hand while I held onto the other. We each pulled, testing the tension.

“Next time we are packing rope,” he said. “And I want to remind you that at this moment I have only two working limbs.”

“No one’s watching but me.”

“I’d like to, on occasion, impress you with my athleticism.”

“I’m impressed by a lot of things you do, but generally not your athleticism,” I said with a smile.

Scowling adorably, he tucked the bottle into his waistband and grabbed hold of my jeans, wrapping the end around his hand to get a better grip. He looked adorably awkward and surprisingly nervous as he scooted backward toward the edge of the building.

“It’s all right. I’ve got you,” I said.

“What are you benching these days?”

“210,” I said with some pride.

“All right, then, let’s do this.”

The denim was taut between us as I slowly lowered Cipher off the side of the building. He used his feet to scale down the cinderblock wall while keeping an eye on the ground below him. By the time I’d lowered him as far as I could, he had about a six-foot drop.

“Bend your knees when you land,” I reminded him.

“Roger.”

He let go, landing on both feet in a crouch, then stood and threw out his one good one arm like a gymnast.

“Bravo,” I called, then tossed him our bags, which he managed to catch with only one arm. I tied off the pants, which didn’t give me much leeway to climb down. My descent was quicker, and I would have made a Tarzan noise for effect if it weren’t for the ever-present threat of Rabids. The drop to the ground was a bit of a shock to my knees but otherwise fine. Once we were both safely on the ground, I retrieved his gun from one of the bags, and we did a sweep of the back of the building.

“All clear on my end. How about you?” Cipher asked.

“Yeah, all clear, but we probably shouldn’t hang around too long.”

“Agreed.” His eyes roved over me again.

“What?” I asked

“You’re practically naked. It’s distracting.”

“Still doing it for you?” I asked while flexing a little.

“One hundred percent.”

I hoped to take advantage of that later on, but for now, we needed to get home. We jogged over to the two dumpsters where Cipher had stashed the bike and I wheeled it out. Cipher pointed out the clutch and the brake, then told me how to get it started. I mounted the bike and planted my foot on the pedal, kickstarting it to life. The engine was more of a hum than a roar but still very satisfying. I took a couple turns around the parking lot to get my bearings while Cipher stood on guard with his gun in case any Rabids showed up. Thankfully, none did.

“Hop on,” I said to him once I’d gotten the hang of it. He mounted the bike, finding a ledge to rest the hooked end of his prosthesis while still holding onto his Glock. The bottle of booze he had tucked inside his sling.

“Here they come,” Cipher said, pointing to the sides of the building where the first few Rabids were rounding the corners. They were moving slower this morning, limping more so than lunging while trying to shield their eyes from the morning light, still on the move.

For a split-second the panic from last night returned, and I forgot what I was doing.

“Pull back on the clutch to accelerate, babe,” Cipher said to me softly, as calm and cool as ever. His hand rubbed against my sternum, centering me as I followed his instructions. The bike lurched into action. The Rabids, perhaps sensing our escape, picked up speed and trailed after us through the parking lot and down the road for a little while before giving up on their pursuit.

“Persistent fuckers,” Cipher said and took another long pull from the bottle.

This new adaptation meant we had to be ever-vigilant when we went outside our compound in the daytime, a whole new threat level to our daily tasks. It wasn’t fair. There was already so much stacked against us. I sensed from Cipher’s somber mood that he felt it too. No doubt there’d be a debrief later.

We set off towards home with the sun at our backs. I ignored the chill in the air as I concentrated on navigating the potholes and sudden shoots of greenery in the road. Cipher let me know when we needed to turn but otherwise he was quiet. We stopped once to take a piss, trading the gun back and forth while watching each others’ backs. When we were both finished, Cipher pulled out his radio to check in with the Assholes. We were out of range last night, so they were probably freaking out.

“Hey, there, Assholes. It’s Cipher and Kitten. We got delayed, but we’re on our way home now.”

“Thanks for finally updating us. We’ve been trying to reach you all night,” Artemis said with a huff of displeasure. When Cipher was out on a mission, she usually acted as leader in his place.

“Where the fuck have you two been?” Macon asked.

“Long story,” Cipher said, “but the short of it is, Rabids.”

“Are you okay?” Artemis asked.

I grabbed the radio from Cipher. “Cipher broke his arm. We’re on our way back now so I can try and mend it.”

“FYI, there’s been new development here too,” Artemis said, sounding cryptic and not entirely happy about it.

“What is it? United Forces again?” Cipher asked, commandeering the radio.

“No. And we’re not in danger. But you need to get home as soon as possible.”

“Yeah, we’ll be there soon. Be nice if you could give me a heads-up as to what we’re walking into, though,” Cipher said.

“Like I said, we’re not in danger,” she repeated.

“Macon, you gonna break rank and tell me what the hell’s going on?” Cipher asked.

“Sorry, boss. Should’ve checked in with us last night. You’re both on the naughty list. You’ll find out when you get here.”

“Assholes,” he muttered and jammed the radio back into its holster on his hip. He took one last draw from the bottle, draining it completely, then tossed it into the overgrown grass.

“Did you want some?” he asked because I was still staring at him.

“Are you drunk?”

“A little.”

“You need to eat something,” I said and stuffed a piece of smoked meat in his mouth.

“You’re so aggressive with food. God, I hate it when she does that,” he said, miffed that Artemis hadn’t told him what was going on. Cipher hated surprises.

“She probably just doesn’t want you to freak out and do something reckless.”

“Me, reckless?” he asked.

We didn’t have time for me to detail all the ways in which he was reckless and besides that, I was anxious to get him home. We mounted up again and arrived back at the compound a little while later. Macon was manning the watchtower, and he radioed for Wylie to come open the gate for us. Artemis was already there, armed with her crossbow, unusual for her inside the compound. No doubt Cipher noticed it too. While Wylie made quick work of the locks, Cipher dismounted, and I wheeled the dirt bike in behind him. Artemis took a long look at both of us. Me, wearing only my underwear and combat boots. Cipher, day drunk with dried blood on his clothes and his arm in a makeshift sling.

“Rabids,” Cipher said shortly as our explanation. “Now what the fuck is going on here?”

“We have guests,” Artemis said with a pointed look at Cipher. The two of them communicated silently; most of the time it went over my head. From behind her, a group of strangers emerged from the house. I didn’t know any of them. Except one. Maybe? He was thin and scruffy, sporting a beard thicker than I’d ever seen him wear before. Could it be?

“Santi?” I asked while setting the bike on its kickstand. The man grinned, and I knew for sure it was my brother. I ran toward him, grabbed him in a big bear hug, and nearly tackled him to the ground. He managed to stay upright and tried to lift me off my feet as he’d done when I was younger, but I was bigger now, so he was only able to squeeze me tightly.

“Joshua, you’re huge. What the hell happened to you?” He scanned me from head to foot then shot a questioning look at Cipher. Cipher’s face was neutral, as it would be with anyone outside our group. “Why are you naked?” he asked me.

“Cipher broke his arm, so I used my shirt as a splint. Then we had to get down from the roof using my jeans.”

“How’d you break your arm?” Macon asked. He’d come down from the watchtower to greet us, still armed with the rifle.

“I fell on it,” Cipher said, eying my brother and the others with obvious suspicion.

“We went out to scavenge and came across some Rabids at a CVS,” I added for the group’s benefit. “We had to climb through the HVAC system and hang out on the roof overnight until they left.”

“Like Die Hard ?” Santi asked me with a grin.

“Yes, just like Die Hard .”

“Well, you look like shit,” Santi said to Cipher and offered his hand.

“Nice to see you too, man,” Cipher said and shook it.

“Hey, buddy, long time no see,” said the man at my brother’s side. He was thinner too and no longer clean-shaven as he was when I’d last seen him in Atlanta. Ansel, my brother’s friend, the guy who’d tried to trade me information for a blowjob. From the way Cipher was glaring at him, he hadn’t forgotten that either.

“Nice to see you again, Ansel.” I offered him my hand.

“This is Rafi and Selena,” Santi said about the other two people with him. “They were in the vaccine trials with me.”

I nodded at them, then turned to my brother again. “How are you? Did you get the virus?”

“Nope, not yet at least. I’m healthy as a horse.” He flexed one bicep to show me.

“Are you immune to Rabid Fever?” I asked, holding out hope.

“Some strands, but they say the virus is mutating faster than they can create vaccines for it.” His disappointment was clear. None of us were immune, and the Rabids were evolving with every new strain. How much longer could we go on living like this?

“Did you go to Promised Land?” I asked, worried for his safety and ours.

“No. We tried staying in Atlanta but it’s a mess there. There were food shortages and lockdowns. Rabids popping up in places without any warning. The government is corrupt and the people in charge don’t do shit about it. I thought about tracking you down, but I wasn’t even sure if Promised Land existed or if you were still there, so we figured we’d wait until the weather got warmer, then come here in case you’d changed your mind.”

“Promised Land does exist, but it’s nothing like what we thought. I’m glad you didn’t go there,” I said.

I had a million questions to ask him and a ton of things we needed to catch up on. Cipher up-nodded the group of them, then said to us Assholes, “I’ve had a hell of a night and to be honest, I’m a little too drunk for this conversation. I’m going to crash. Kitten, come find me when you’re done here.” Cipher then turned to Artemis, “Don’t make any decisions without me.”

“You got it, boss,” she said while I wondered what decisions he might mean.

My brother spoke in Spanish to Rafi and Selena as I watched Cipher amble toward our house, cradling his bad arm. My poor guy.

“He doesn’t want to have it looked at,” I said to Artemis. “He’s being stubborn about it.”

“I’m not surprised,” she said with a sigh.

“Do you guys want a tour?” I asked my brother and his crew. They nodded, but Artemis laid a hand on my arm.

“Kitten, a word please?” she said, leaning toward my good ear.

I followed her a few paces away and she said very quietly, “I’d prefer you not show them our compound until we decide on whether or not they’re going to stay.”

Decide? A lot had happened in the past twenty minutes, so it took me a moment to catch up with what she was saying. Also, I may not have heard her correctly. “What do you mean whether they’re going to stay?”

“We need to discuss it as a group. And make that decision together.”

“But this is his home.”

“No outsiders. No exceptions,” she said.

“Artemis, are you serious?”

“We don’t know yet if we can trust them.”

“But he’s my brother.”

“And he abandoned you,” she said coolly. “We’re your family now, Kitten. We are loyal to each other and no one else. I’m sorry.”

I blinked in shock as she walked back over to where Santi stood with his friends. I jogged to catch up with her so I wouldn’t miss what she was saying.

“We can offer you food and shelter for another night. Do you intend to stay?” she asked.

Santi cocked his head to one side, “Um, yeah. This is my home.”

“This is our home now. We’ve built this compound and secured it for our safety. We have a limited amount of food and supplies. We need to discuss it as a group and take a vote.”

“A vote? Joshua, what the fuck is she talking about?” Santi asked me. I was still reeling myself, from his sudden appearance and the fact that he might not be able to stay. It had never occurred to me that we’d need to vote on it. Santi and I were brothers.

“I don’t know. I didn’t know it’d be like this–”

“You can plead your case at our daily meeting,” Artemis told him curtly, coldly even. “I’d suggest you prepare your most compelling argument.”

Artemis, like Cipher, was an impenetrable wall when she wanted to be, and Santi, sensing this, didn’t try to argue further but instead huddled up with his friends. I glanced around at the other Assholes.

“I’d better get back to the workshop,” Wylie said, nodding his head once before making his way to the garage.

“I’m still on duty,” Macon said and laid a hand on my shoulder. “Good to have you back, short stack. Try not to worry us like that again.”

“Sorry about your brother,” Teresa said, as if it had already been decided. She’d been hiding behind Artemis the whole time, shooting the newcomers wary looks. She stuck close to Artemis as the two of them walked away, leaving me to wonder, did all of the Assholes feel the same way? What if they forced my brother to leave? Where would he go? Would I have to choose between my brother or my family?

I stood there in the middle of the cul-de-sac, my home, feeling confused and betrayed because this wasn’t a choice I ever thought I’d have to make.