Chapter 93: Book 1: Epilogue (Part 1 of 2)

Hector Guberschmidt

Day 8

Hector was awoken by the tweeting of starlings in the early morning. There was a large white ash tree that he could see from his bedroom window where they liked to roost. He had hated the birds during those first few weeks after his mother evicted him and he came to live with his father. Their chirping woke him every morning shortly after the sun came up.

Who would want to get up at such an unearthly hour?

Hector firmly believed in getting a solid ten hours followed by a good hour of dozing while he thought about his future and who would be in it. And all the other uses he and his beloved could find for a nice, comfortable bed.

That had been before, though. Before the world went crazy and his father and beloved went missing. Before the monsters came sniffing at the house during the night. Now the chirping bird calls were a signal that the night, and all the horrors it held, was over. A relief, not a damn nuisance.

He crawled out from under his mattress. His bastion of safety. He’d dragged the mattress in from his father’s room and the one from the guest bedroom to bolster the security of the little nest he had built for himself. But not the mattress from his beloved’s room. Her room he left in pristine condition, ready for her return.

Shana would be so happy when she saw what good care he had taken of her personal sanctum. Happy and grateful. Very grateful. Not like his mother, that bitch. He put himself out there, worked his fingers to the bone at that prison they called a school, and always she wanted more from him. Nothing was ever good enough.

Hector smiled darkly and giggled to himself as thoughts of what the monsters must have done to the dumb cow without him around to protect and provide for her, flittered through his mind. His mother must have deeply regretted the day she kicked him to the curb. He was sure she would have cried out for him in agony and misery as the cat-like things with tentacles around their necks that he had seen running around during the night ate her intestines while she was still alive.

That mental scenario was a particular favourite of his and he felt himself get hard.

He reached down to take care of himself when his stomach rumbled loudly in response and the profound hunger pangs that sleep had relieved came back to the fore of his consciousness. Blessed sleep had allowed him to forget his predicament for a few hours and now reality roared back to life. He’d been prepared to ignore his gnawing hunger in favour of stroking out a little sexual tension but then his bowels shifted. The urgency to defecate meant he couldn’t concentrate on more important matters any longer.

With a loud sigh, he got to his feet, grabbed his trusty baseball bat, just in case, and padded across the carpeted hallway to the bathroom. He pulled the door open slowly, checking for any danger when the smell hit him.

The water pressure had dropped to nothing four, maybe five, days ago. Perhaps he shouldn’t have continued to use the toilet when the flush stopped working but where else could he go. It’s not like he could go outside, not with looters and monsters running rampant. He had to stay indoors and protect his father’s home.

He was a Guberschmidt and Guberschmidts looked after family. His mother didn’t count, she had only been a Guberschmidt by marriage. The selfish cow had changed her name anyway, the minute her divorce from his father had been finalised. Proof if Hector needed any further of what a vile waste of human existence she was. The world would be better off without her.

Hector hesitated at the door. The smell was truly awful, and he’d been unwilling to leave the window open overnight lest a long-fingered beastie finds its way in. Shana had a small adjoining bathroom in her room, maybe he could use that?

No, he told himself fiercely. He was a proper gentleman, and she would find all her facilities in the condition she left them in when his father brought her back to him. Hector stepped into the bathroom and pushed the window open wide with the end of the baseball bat. After that, he couldn’t hold it any longer and pulled his pants down and sat on the toilet seat while he pinched his nose closed.

Ten minutes later Hector cautiously made his way down the stairs. He went through his routine of checking all the doors and windows. Finding no evidence that they had been forced during the night, he relaxed and headed to the kitchen to search it for food once again.

An hours’ worth of investigation in the kitchen and every other room besides had turned up three stale crackers and half a dozen pieces of uncooked macaroni that Hector had found in the back of a drawer. He had no idea how long they had been there, not that it mattered overmuch. With no power and water, he had no way of cooking them properly. Ravenous, Hector consumed the meagre, dry, and tasteless fare he had assembled before him in under a minute, washed down with the last of the bottled water he had on hand.

It barely touched the spot. He sat in the kitchen then, head in hands, despondent, facing the harsh reality before him. The crackers and macaroni had been the very last of the food in the house and it barely qualified as such.

His father, Victor, and Shana had not returned from their trip to Flint on the day the world went mad. He was confident they would be back. His father was the most resourceful fellow he knew, after all. However, Hector had overheard the incessant chatter from the neighbours in those first few days and knew that cars weren’t working, just like the power, and then the water. It would take time for his father to return with monsters roaming the land.

Hector would have to fend for himself a while longer. He would have to go outside. Take some risks. He could do this. He was a Guberschmidt. Find food and fresh water and bring it back. Like a real hero.

His fingers rattled on the table at the thought of venturing out alone. Not from fear, of course. No, never fear. It had to be adrenaline from the excitement. Yes, that’s what was causing his shaking limbs.

He stood suddenly. “I won’t let you down, my beloved, my Shana.”

His decision had been made. First, he had something he needed to do before he braved the wild outdoors, a ritual performed with reverence every day. He crept upstairs to his beloved’s bedroom. Removing his clothes, he got under the covers and felt a thrill of anticipation. Soon, they would be sharing this bed, together, every night for the rest of their lives.

Hector realised he was hard again and decided to take care of that before heading out. When he had finished, he wiped himself off on the sheets. After the many daily visits to her room since the apocalypse began, it was difficult to find a section not already soiled.

Shana would understand, though. Hector was sure of it. She wouldn’t see this as creepy and disgusting like those entitled cock-teases from his school who accused him of being a pervert. Shana would appreciate he wasn’t despoiling the room but leaving her a physical expression of his love and adoration. Improving the room in a very personal way.

Victor had told Hector that Shana would soon be coming into a lot of money. That was why she was perfect. Unlike those whores from school who always wanted something in exchange for their affection. They judged men by how much they could give them and not by their inner worth which was so much more valuable. Hector had been assured by his father that Shana would be above such pettiness and see him for who he truly was and love him with all her heart.

He was a Guberschmidt, like his father, and they were winners. His father told him so, therefore, it had to be true. His father never lied. Never.

 

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Mia Gutierrez

Day 14

 

“Come on Mia, you know it’s a good idea. It’s our dream. Don’t tell me you are giving up on our dream. You wouldn’t have taken the Apprentice Herbalist class if you had given up on our dream,” Keith pleaded with Mia for the seventh night in a row.

Mia could smell the booze on his breath as he snaked his arm around her waist. When Torin had chewed him out for his obsession with high-end electronics at the store he’d filled his inventory with alcohol instead. Mia would have preferred that he wasted his time with the television sets.

Her thoughts flicked back to that moment two weeks ago. Hugging Torin as he was about to leave and then feeling his hands squeezing her butt cheeks fondly. It had been a surprise, but a welcome one. He had been a handsome devil even before the system apocalypse as people had started to call it. Had she not been with Keith she would have made a play for him on his first day at the BuyMart, but…well…she had been with Keith.

Even so, when Torin had made the offer to take her with him she almost said yes. Had he not just spent the night with that beauty, Shana, maybe she would have. Doubt that Torin would pick her over Shana had stayed her hand.

And then, for the briefest of moments, when she had looked up into his piercing blue on black eyes, she had seen his desire and felt his power and thought, maybe, just maybe, he would make her go with him regardless of her reluctance. Perhaps he wanted them both.

The recollection alone sent a tingling thrill through her body, and she felt her nipples harden. For the hundredth time since that day, she silently wished he had thrown her over his shoulders and carried her away. Which is what made the sensation of Keith’s wandering hands on her hip doubly distasteful.

Mia grabbed his hand and removed it forcefully and stepped away from him angrily. “You can’t touch me like that anymore, Keith. We broke up.”

There had been no way she could stay with Keith with her every thought fixated on another man. Mia Gutierrez was raised right, and she was no cheating puta, not even in the privacy of her mind. Had she only been a bit more decisive two weeks ago everything would be different.

Keith held his hands up in mock surrender. “Sorry, babe. Old habits. It won’t happen again,” he smirked.

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Mia had believed him the first couple of times it had happened. She knew better than to believe him now. It was obvious Keith assumed if he kept behaving as if nothing had changed then it wouldn’t change.

She sat down in a black leather armchair on the other side of the lounge. A chair whose arms were close enough on either side that Keith couldn’t try and sit next to her.

They had managed to stay in the BuyMart for another day before some of the other employees had shown up and forced their way in, unaffected by the shield. Once the door had been knocked down and left wide open the looting began in earnest and the shielding on the building was fully compromised.

After that, at Malky’s suggestion, they had taken shelter in this golf clubhouse on a course near the southwest edge of Flint. So close to the edge of Flint’s borders they could practically spit into the adjoining Schwartz township.

Malky’s mother used to clean here before she passed a few years back and the big man still had the keys to the building which the owners had given her to perform her job out of hours. Away from the sight of paying customers. Luckily, the locks hadn’t been changed and nobody else had been here, so it had seemed like a good place to evaluate the situation, pick up enough experience to redo character creation, and then get their shit together.

Part one of that plan worked well enough. They grouped up with Malky who went out at night and killed any creatures roaming around on the golf course. After a couple of evenings, both Mia and Keith had enough experience points to utilise their second chance.

Mia had felt bad that she had taken a non-combat class, but she also knew she wasn’t made for battle. Apprentice Herbalist fed her lifelong interest in horticulture, and she’d already developed her skills with poultice making. So, she contributed to their protection that way, unlike Keith.

Despite having the necessary experience, Keith hadn’t been through character creation or at least that’s what he told them. He said it was because he was undecided about what to do, but Mia thought he was afraid. Another extension of his delusion that if he continued to act like nothing had changed then, as if by magic, it wouldn’t have. Ironic really, considering magic did exist and had been the direct cause of the change he so desperately wanted to deny had occurred.

His refusal to do what needed to be done was the last straw and she had told him it was over that very night. With every day that passed since she struggled to comprehend what she had ever seen in him. Did the reefer really fuck with her judgement that badly?

Unfortunately, they had been deadlocked since then. Mia wanted to leave and follow Torin, though she couldn’t tell Keith the real reason why other than that Torin had a plan and knew what he was doing. Keith had an alternative idea that involved staying and Malky refused to take sides.

They stared at one another in uncomfortable silence for several minutes.

“Anyway,” Keith said eventually when he thought Mia had calmed down. “I’ve really been working on the…the…idea.”

Mia sighed as she prepared herself to patiently listen to Keith’s pitch. Again.

“Opening our own marijuana…dispensary has always been our dream, babe. And now we have the perfect opportunity to go one…step further. This whole golf course is ours and is…the perfect place to grow a crop. It even has a creek that runs through it for all our…our…watering needs. With your new skills and my connections, we…we…could make a mint. The local cops don’t give a shit what people are doing anymore. I know the course can be dangerous at night, but we’ve got the big guy for security. Well, what do you think?” Keith asked with a slight slurring of his words and hiccoughed at the end.

Mia realised that Keith must have knocked back a very large glass of bourbon before confronting her again, on top of the considerable amount he had already drunk. His inebriation had ratcheted up severely in the last couple of minutes alone.

“Keith,” she said slowly. “I think the same thing that I thought last night and every night since we got here. That it is a bad idea.”

“If…hic…If you’re worried about the mu…monsters. Don’t be. Now the guvnors back…with the…the…the…whatsit it people…guard. Yeah, the guard. They’ll keep the monsters at bay. No worries.”

“For fucks sake, Keith. Listen to yourself. Do you really think the national guard is going to waste their resources defending your pot farm? We went over this last night. The Governor and his people have already moved on to Lansing. We need to find Torin.”

“Fu…fuck, Torin. And the fu...fucking horse he rode in on. He’s not the boss of me. Fucking nobody is the boss of me no more. This is our fucking dream…Mia. You can’t give up on dreams.”

“Growing weed and opening a dispensary was your dream, Keith, not mine. Yeah, I found the idea of growing new strains of marijuana an interesting subject to study. Keyword…STUDY. I wanted to open a nursery for orchids.”

“Nurse…Nursery? You want kids? You never said…Come here, babe. I can give you what you need,” he leered, misunderstanding Mia.

Keith lurched forward with pursed lips, making sloppy kissing sounds. Out of nowhere Malky appeared and seized Keith by the nape of his neck before he reached the distressed Hispanic woman who had started to try and crawl back, up, and out of the black leather armchair.

Mia surmised Malky had either been super quiet or neither of them had heard him come in over the sound of their quarrelling.

“Malky…what the fuck?” Keith snapped as he struggled futilely in the large man’s iron grip.

Without a word, Malky frogmarched him out of the bar to the offices at the back where they had set up their makeshift bedrooms.

Mia heard Malky growl “sleep it off,” from down the corridor and then the sound of the door slamming and the lock turning.

A few seconds later Malky walked back into the room and looked over at her. Guilt wracked his features. “I’m sorry, Mia, for his behaviour. It is not acceptable.”

Mia jumped up from the armchair and embraced the gentle giant. “It’s not your fault, Malky. Keith makes his own choices.”

Malky stroked the top of the short woman’s head and smiled down at her.

“Maybe,” he said quietly. “But I should have taken you away from this place when you first suggested it.”

“That’s not your fault either, Malky. We’re here because Keith refuses to leave and you’re his pal and don’t want to leave him behind. He is the one being selfish. You are just being a good friend,” she reasoned.

“True, but something has to change,” he said with a heavy heart. “I’m not stupid, not anymore. I know Keith is using my loyalty to get his way…It’s just…I can’t leave him like this. Not without giving him a chance.”

“Malky, you were never stupid,” Mia clucked at him in mock annoyance and pulled out of the hug.

Mia looked at the big man and felt guilty. She knew she needed Malky to keep her safe on the journey west. Mia hadn’t wanted to make him choose between her and Keith. In part because she was afraid that he would pick her former boyfriend.

Keith had been Malky’s only real friend for years before Mia came onto the scene. That was why they’d been stuck here arguing for a week, but Mia finally admitted to herself that Keith would never see sense. She would have to make Malky choose, regardless of the outcome.

If Malky had been better at dissembling his intentions she would have suggested they ‘fake’ making a firm decision to depart. Keith would see through that, though. Not out of cleverness, but he would make a play for sympathy and discover Malky wasn’t being serious. For this to work Malky genuinely had to be willing to leave him behind.

However, Mia wasn’t confident of the outcome if she gave an ultimatum to Malky tonight, even after Keith’s behaviour. She had to lay some groundwork to make sure Malky picked her over his long-standing friend when this finally came to a head.

“Okay, I’ve had an idea,” she told him. “We’ll offer Keith a deal. He gets two more weeks. We’ll help him start his stupid pot farm here on the golf course. He keeps telling us he has connections. If his idea proves viable, then he can use that to bring these connections to the course to tend and defend the crop and keep him safe while we travel west to find Torin. If the farm doesn’t work, then he won’t have any further excuses not to come with us.”

Malky nodded and looked much happier.

Two weeks was longer than she wanted to wait but Mia was confident that Keith would agree. She had little faith he would keep his word if the crop failed or these connections, which was likely Bruce, the guy he bought his weed from, failed to materialise. But Keith breaking a promise to Malky was kind of the point. If they made him a fair offer and he broke the deal, it ought to be enough to convince the reluctant Malky to leave him behind.

Once Keith figured out they were serious, he’d probably cave and follow them anyway. Or he wouldn’t, and that would be fine too.

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