armed rovers stripping survivors of everything including the shoes on their feet. Several of the settlers’ vehicles are currently out on scavenging reconnaissance but you never know.
Lilly looks up from the girls’ hopscotch court—the squares have been etched in a little bare patch of brick-red clay with a stick—and the Bingham girls all freeze in mid-skip. The oldest girl, Sarah, shoots a glance at the road. A skinny tomboy in a faded denim jumper and down vest with big inquisitive blue eyes, fifteen-year-old Sarah, the whip-smart ringleader of the four sisters, softly utters, “Is that—”
“It’s okay, sweetie,” Lilly says. “Pretty sure it’s one of ours.”
The three younger sisters start craning their necks, looking for their mom.
Donna Bingham is presently out of view, washing clothes in a galvanized tin drum out behind the family’s large camping tent, which Chad Bingham lovingly erected four days ago, equipping it with aluminum cots, racks of coolers, vent stacks, and a battery-operated DVD player with a library of children’s fare such as
“Sarah, get Ruthie,” Lilly says calmly yet firmly as the engine noises close the distance, the vapor of burning oil rising above the tree line. Lilly rises to her feet and quickly moves over to the twins. Nine-year-old Mary and Lydia are identical cherubs in matching peacoats and flaxen pigtails. Lilly herds the little ones toward the tent flap while Sarah scoops up the seven-year-old Ruthie—an adorable little elf with Shirley Temple curls hanging over the collar of her miniature ski jacket.
Donna Bingham appears around the side of the tent just as Lilly is ushering the twins into the enclosure. “What’s going on?” The mousy woman in the canvas jacket looks as though a stiff wind might blow her over. “Who is it? Is it rovers? Is it a stranger?”
“Nothing to worry about,” Lilly tells her, holding the tent flap open as the four girls file into the shadows. In the five days since the contingent of settlers arrived here, Lilly has become the de facto babysitter, watching over various groups of offspring while parents go out scavenging or go on walks or just grab some alone time. She’s happy for the welcome distraction, especially now that the babysitting can provide an excuse to avoid all contact with Josh Lee Hamilton. “Just stay in the tent with the girls until we know who it is.”
Donna Bingham gladly shuts herself inside the enclosure with her daughters.
Lilly whirls toward the road and sees the grill of a familiar fifteen-forward-speed International Harvester truck materializing in a haze of wood smoke at the far end of the road—coming around the bend in gasps of exhaust— sending a wave of relief through Lilly. She smiles in spite of her nerves and starts toward the bare ground on the west edge of the field, which serves as a loading area. The rust-bucket truck clatters across the grass and shudders to a stop, the three teenagers riding in the back with the roped-down crates nearly tumbling forward against the pockmarked cab.
“Lilly Marlene!” the driver calls out the open cab window as Lilly comes around the front of the truck. Bob Stookey has big greasy hands—the hands of a laborer—wrapped around the wheel.
“What’s on the menu today, Bob?” Lilly says with a wan smile. “More Twinkies?”
“Oh, we got a full gourmet spread with all the trimmings today, little sis.” Bob cocks his deeply lined face toward the crew in back. “Found a deserted Target, only a couple of walkers to deal with … made out like bandits.”
“Do tell.”
“Let’s see…” Bob jerks the shift lever into park and kills the rumbling engine. His skin the color of tanned cowhide, his droopy eyes rimmed red, Bob Stookey is one of the last men in the New South still using pomade to grease his dark hair back over his weathered head. “Got lumber, sleeping bags, tools, canned fruit, lanterns, cereal, weather radios, shovels, charcoal—what else? Also got a bunch of pots and pans, some tomato plants—still with a few warty little tomaters on the vines—some tanks of butane, ten gallons of milk that expired only a couple of weeks ago, some hand sanitizer, Sterno, laundry soap, candy bars, toilet paper, a Chia Pet, a book on organic farming, a singing fish for my tent, and a partridge in a pear tree.”
“Bob, Bob, Bob … no AK-47s? No dynamite?”
“Got something better than that, smarty pants.” Bob reaches over to a peach crate sitting on the passenger seat next to him. He hands it through the window to Lilly. “Be a darlin’ and put this in my tent while I help these three stooges in back with the heavy stuff.”
“What is it?” Lilly looks down at the crate full of plastic vials and bottles.
“Medical supplies.” Bob opens his door and climbs out. “Need to keep ’em safe.”
Lilly notices half a dozen pint bottles of liquor wedged in between the antihistamines and codeine. She gazes up at Bob and gives him a look. “Medical supplies?”
He grins. “I’m a very sick man.”
“I’ll say,” Lilly comments. She knows enough about Bob’s background by now to know that aside from being a sweet, genial, somewhat lost soul, as well as being a former army medic—which makes him the only inhabitant of the tent city with any medical training—he is also an inveterate drunk.
In the early stages of their friendship, back when Lilly and Megan were still on the road, and Bob had helped them out of a jam at a rest stop crawling with zombies, Bob had made feckless attempts to hide his alcoholism. But by the time the group had settled here in this deserted pastureland five days ago, Lilly had begun regularly helping Bob stagger safely back to his tent at night, making sure nobody robbed him—which was a real threat in a group this large and varied and filled with so much tension. She liked Bob, and she didn’t mind babysitting
Right now, in fact, she can tell he needs something else from her. She can tell by the way he’s wiping his mouth thoughtfully with his dirty hand.
“Lilly, there’s something else I wanted to—” He stops and swallows awkwardly.
She lets out a sigh. “Spit it out, Bob.”
“It’s none of my business … all right. I just wanted to say … aw, hell.” He takes a deep breath. “Josh Lee, he’s a good man. I visit with him now and again.”
“Yeah … and?”
“And I’m just saying.”
“Go on.”
“I’m just … look … he ain’t doing too good right about now, all right? He thinks you’re sore at him.”
“He thinks I’m what?”
“He thinks you’re mad at him for some reason, and he ain’t sure why.”
“What did he say?”
Bob gives her a shrug. “It’s none of my beeswax. I ain’t exactly privy to … I don’t know, Lilly. He just wishes you wasn’t ignoring him.”
“I’m not.”
Bob looks at her. “You sure?”
“Bob, I’m telling you—”
“All right, look.” Bob waves his hand nervously. “I ain’t telling you what to do. I just think two people like y’all, good folks, it’s a shame something like this, you know, in these times…” His voice trails off.
Lilly softens. “I appreciate what you’re saying, Bob, I do.”
She looks down.
Bob purses his lips, thinks it over. “I saw him earlier today, over by the log pile, chopping wood like it was going outta style.”
* * *
The distance between the loading area and the stack of cordwood measures less than a hundred yards, but crossing it feels like the Bataan Death March to Lilly.
She walks slowly, with her head down, and her hands thrust in the pockets of her jeans to conceal the trembling. She has to weave through a group of women sorting clothes in suitcases, circle around the end of the circus tent, sidestep a group of boys repairing a broken skateboard, and give wide berth to a cluster of men inspecting a row of weapons spread out on a blanket on the ground.
As she passes the men—Chad Bingham included in their number, holding court like a redneck despot—Lilly glances down at the tarnished pistols, eleven of them, different calibers, makes, and models, neatly arrayed like
