Cleese sat at the end of a long picnic table, aggressively wiping slices of bread across the plate in front of him. His eyes roamed over his surroundings warily as he stuffed fingers full of food into his mouth. It had been a while since he’d eaten actual cooked food and the fare these people were serving up warmed his stomach and stuck to his ribs.
With every mouthful, his head became clearer and thinking back, the last memory he had of a full meal was the one at the bar, before everything went to shit. He’d just finished eating and was about to settle down to spend the evening indulging in his favorite sport—competitive drinking—when things got hazy. He had a dim recollection of some commotion that had started after something had been broadcast on the television, a foggy memory of people talking excitedly about some crazy shit. The bits of conversation he was able to pull from the sludge of his memory seemed like something out of a horror movie more than anything else. Then there’d been the sound of wood splintering and his memory of the night blurred into visions of pale faces with gnashing teeth, punches being thrown, and the sticky sensation of blood on his hands.
The next thing he knew, he was walking in the early morning sunshine and nursing one hell of a hangover. After that, it had been what seemed like days and days of running and fighting and the constant struggle to make his way through the city and across the bridge. The memories of that time were not anything he wanted to hold onto. He preferred to let them lurk at the furthest periphery of his thoughts, for they offered him little solace. Once across the bridge, he’d decided the best plan was to put some distance between him and where he knew the dead lurked by heading into the woods. He could figure things out once he had some time to rest and get an idea of exactly what the fuck had happened—and how bad it all was. That little plan was interrupted when he was stopped by Wolf’s heavily armed men.
Flash forward to the present and Cleese finding himself here.
After a quick but welcomed shower, change of clothes, and food, he was ready to have some of his questions answered. Unfortunately, the things he was hearing didn’t make any more sense than his memories did.
Wolf sat across from him and was just finishing his explanation of what was now what. Cleese listened carefully as he polished off a heel of bread coated with the last remnant of his meal. On any other day, he would have called the man a 'bullshitter' if he was being nice or a 'fucking liar' if he wasn’t and then sent him packing. Today though, some core of his intellect, some small shard of his drunken memory, was able to vouch for the veracity of the man’s story; no matter how far-fetched.
'So,' Wolf concluded and sat back in his seat, 'that’s where we are. The dead aren’t exactly obliged to stay dead any longer, and as you well know it’s pretty dangerous out there.'
The young girl in ponytails suddenly appeared at Wolf’s side and set two cups of steaming coffee before them. She cast a quick, yet surreptitious glance at Cleese.
'Thank you, Jenny,' Wolf said and smiled at her in gratitude.
Cleese half-stood and thanked her with a reflexive slight bow. The girl looked at him and smiled. Then, as quickly as she’d come she disappeared back into the crowd.
Cleese grinned as he sat and looked at the steaming cup. Picking up the Styrofoam cylinder, his hands were instantly warmed by the hot smoky fluid within. The first sip sent cascades of warm flavor down his throat. Cleese kept the cup at his lips and blew across the rim. Breathing in the rich aroma, he cast his gaze into the surrounding crowd. His eyes were met by a small sea of normal—albeit frightened—faces. The interesting thing was not one of them stood out as exceptional. These were not soldiers, not by any stretch of the imagination. What he saw was the run-of-the-mill faces of grocers, students, delivery drivers, businessmen, and cashiers; all of them just regular people who’d been thrust into a nightmare far beyond their wildest reckoning. Hot on the heels of that thought came the realization that unless things radically changed in the world,the vast majority of them would be dead inside of a month.
'We’ve managed to make a safe place for ourselves up here,' Wolf continued, 'but it’s still pretty touch and go. We have supplies. We have food and ammunition. But we know all too well that one—just one—of those things getting inside the perimeter would mean the death of every one of us.'
As Cleese drank his coffee and pondered all that he’d been told, a pot-bellied man stepped out of the crowd and sat down uninvited next to Wolf. The guy gave off a bitter vibe due mostly to the perpetual look of disgust on his face; the expression of someone who’d just stepped on a slug in his bare feet. From his build, Cleese could tell the guy had some muscle on him back in the day; probably from playing high school ball. These days though, he was just another fat guy who was way past his prime, laboring under the misconception that he was a whole lot harder than he really was.
'Enough of this shit, Bob,' the guy interrupted. The man tried to look Cleese dead in the eye and push his dominance. Cleese stared back unimpressed. In his day, he had given hundreds of fat slobs like this the bum’s rush; tossing them onto their asses out of the back doors of more bars than he could count. In the end, it wasn’t Cleese who looked away.
'Cleese,' Wolf said as a way of introducing this pudgy asshole, 'this is Fred Bartlett. He’s been helping out with scheduling the security watch around the camp and leading some of the recon runs into town.'
'Charmed,' Cleese said to Bartlett and, as if in dismissal, returned his gaze to Wolf.
Bartlett returned his gaze to Cleese for a moment and his sneer intensified. He snorted in what passed for disgust and then went back to his obviously prepared bit of bravado.
'So, tell me… Cleese was it?' he said with an exaggerated smirk. 'How is it that you—all alone—made it out of the city in one piece? Everyone we’ve run into out there has been either severely injured or infected. Yet, here you are… neither one of those things.'
'What can I say, Fred?' Cleese responded wryly. 'I’m a talented motherfucker and a mean, mean man.'
Bartlett turned and rolled his eyes exaggeratedly to the obvious appreciation of his collected short bus of sycophants off to the side. There was the bespectacled bald guy who looked like a pharmacist, the Polack with the big nose and clown hat of hair on his head, the ex-corporate suck-up who was now playing at survivalist tough guy, and the dark complexioned dude with the even darker circles under his eyes. This confederacy of dunces watched over Bartlett like he was their own personal Jesus.
Something told Cleese that these dopes would soon become a major sore in his ass. He chalked it up as little more than a hunch, but if experience had taught him anything, it was that his hunches were rarely wrong.
'Well, I don’t know about any of that, but…' Bartlett said, looking back incredulously, 'I’m of the opinion that you’re either one of the luckiest men on the face of the earth… or, and this is much more likely, that your story is full of more holes than a block of Swiss cheese.'
'Well, shit, Fro-derick… that just plain ain’t nice,' Cleese responded with a slow smile. 'You wound me.'
As this exchange was transpiring, Wolf’s gaze drifted over the assembled crowd, judging their mood. He quickly realized that this avenue of bickering and macho posturing was proving to be a fruitless one and would, in the end, be antithetical to them continuing to work together as a team.
'Well, whatever…' Wolf interrupted. 'You know as well as I do, Fred, we all have our stories and maybe Cleese will share his one day. Right now though, we still have a schedule to keep and there’s enough of the day left that we can do that run into the ’burbs and recon that strip mall we saw last time out. I’m convinced that pharmacy has some shit we can use. Agreed?'
Bartlett cocked a sideways grin and nodded. He figured that whatever Cleese’s story turned out to be, they would get to the bottom of it soon enough. They’d all see him for what he was—a fraud—and they’d see that he’d been lying about where he’d come from and what he’d done. Awkwardly, he stood up and took a step away from the table.
'Cleese,' Wolf continued, 'you’re welcome to stay here for as long as you’d like, but we’ll need to find something for you to do, some way to contribute. No one rides for free around here and you look pretty able- bodied.'
Cleese nodded. 'I’m happy to help in any way I can.'
Bartlett, who’d taken another step toward the crowd, stopped and looked back over his shoulder. A wide grin of smug self-satisfaction spread across his face. It was pretty obvious he’d done himself a bit of quick thinking.
'Hey, Wolf… How’z about we get Mr. Talented here started by having him come with us to check out that drug store?' Bartlett suggested. 'We’ll get him a gun and I can show him the ropes.'
Both Cleese and Wolf saw the idea for precisely what it was—an opportunity for Bartlett to establish a pecking order with the New Guy. It was a move that would by definition put Cleese in a subservient role.
Bartlett figured to use it as an opportunity to put Cleese in the shit and when he went pussy, he’d be exposed
