Owen stood in the center of the destruction and his nostrils flared with each labored breath. His shoulders were hunched to the point that his neck seemed to be swallowed by the collar of his shirt and his features were as twisted and gnarled as the trunks of the oldest trees in the surrounding forest. Behind the cracked lenses of his glasses, the man’s eyes smoldered like the embers he’d kicked from the remnants of last night’s campfire. The heat quickly spread to his face and tinted his normally pale complexion a fiery crimson as the little vein above his left temple throbbed in time with his racing heart.
That little weasel was out there somewhere. Right now. With
His eyes darted to an old stump he’d drug into the clearing and the corner of his mouth began to twitch. Embedded in the outer rim of the wood was the shiny, steel blade of a hatchet. The metal contorted his reflection into a fun-house caricature that seemed to pulse in the sunlight dappling through the canopy of of leaves.
Images of Tanny flooded his mind like geysers of sewage from a broken main. Owen saw the twerp brushing her cheek gently with his stubby fingers. Staring into her soft eyes with that lecherous smile of his. Reducing her into nothing more than an object for his sick little fantasies.
Owen’s body trembled as if the temperature had just dropped thirty degrees and he felt something like a deep rumble vibrate within his chest. The reverberation grew in intensity and within moments a pressure had grown within that threatening to burst his flesh like an overinflated balloon. It erupted through his esophagus, shot up past his vocal cords with acidic fire, and spewed from his mouth in the form of a guttural scream that echoed off the hills and startled a flock of birds into flight.
He stormed across the campsite, clearing the few feet between him and the stump with short, quick strides. Wrenching the hatchet free, he raised it above his tangled mop of blond hair like a victorious gladiator and yelled his threat to the rising sun.
“Here comes your nightmare, man. Here comes your frickin’ nightmare!”
He’d find them. He’d rescue her from that little troll and prop her against the base of a tree where she could relish every bloody moment of Tanny’s punishment; where she could bask in his screams and delight in his pleas for mercy.
No… that wasn’t right. She was so good and kind; she’d probably flinch, maybe even beg Owen to stop. But there would be at least a small part of her, he was certain, that would recognize how special she was to him. How far he would go to defend her honor and keep her safe from all the things that slithered through this season of darkness, whether that threat be from the hordes of shambling dead or a pathetic excuse of a man who thought he could just waltz right in and steal the only woman who’d ever meant anything to Owen.
“Kiss your ass goodbye, mother fucker. I’ll find you. Mark my words, I will.”
With this final statement of resolve Owen crashed through the undergrowth, the hatchet swinging in his hand and already feeling like a natural extension of his body.
It hadn’t taken Tanny Henderson long to realize his traveling companion has some serious issues. Oh, he’d seemed normal enough when they’d first met on the muddy banks of the Elk River. More than normal, in fact: he’d seemed decent… which was a rare commodity in this day and age. He hadn’t cracked any of the lame jokes Tanny had heard a million times, hadn’t held him down and laughed about claiming the pot of gold. Nor were there any references to The Lollipop Guild, hobbit holes, or the ever-popular reply that everything was just smurfy. If Owen Reid had any misgivings about the stature of a man who stood eye-level with his belt buckle, he’d done a damn good job of keeping it to himself. Even the most conscientious of people normally couldn’t resist the subconscious impulse to stoop down with their hands on their thighs when they spoke to Tanny. As if they were speaking to a small child and not a man with thirty plus years of life behind him.
“I think we should probably stick together for a bit.” Owen had said as he watched the emerald waters of the river gurgle over some rocky shoals. “I hear that Charleston is crawling with them undead bastards.”
“Where you heading, anyway?”
Owen’s eyes had gotten a distant look to them: as if he were peering straight through the hills with their lush foliage and hidden reams of dark coal. When he spoke, his voice was so soft that it was like listening to someone through the muffled veil of impending sleep; but, at the same time, there was a reverence to his answer. Almost as if he were uttering the name of a some mythical land where gods were born.
“Tuscon, Arizona.”
“Me,” Tanny had replied, “I’m going to Chattanooga, myself. Hoping that my brother might still be alive. Hook up with him and see where fate leads us, I guess. You got someone in Tuscon, Owen?”
“Yeah… my girl.”
Owen had flushed slightly and jammed his hands in his hips pockets as he stared at the tips of his red Chucks. He glanced at Tanny every few seconds as if half expecting his new friend to laugh and seemed as uncomfortable as a teenager asking his first crush on a date.
“You don’t say? You lucky, devil, you….”
A smile had flitted across Owen’s face and his eyes seemed to twinkle in the afternoon sunlight.
“Yeah, I guess I am. Aren’t I?”
Tanny had just finished taking a long pull from his canteen and wiped the droplets of water from his red beard with the back of his hand. He lifted the round container as if in a toast.
“Well, here’s hoping she’s still alive, buddy.”
In the time it took for a bird to warble twice, everything about Owen changed. His body tensed and his eyes sparked with seething rage as his hands balled into fists. He thrust himself forward so quickly that Tanny stumbled backward and instinctively raised his hands in an open-palmed expression of submission.
“She’s not dead, damn it!”
Spittle flew from Owen’s snarled lips and his jaw quivered with the force of the words.
“She tough and she’s strong and and she’s noble and there’s not a rotter this side of China that could take her down. She’s there, in Tuscon, and she’s waiting for me so you just shut your fuckin’ mouth!”
In retrospect, Tanny should have hightailed it off that river bank right then and there. Instead, he found himself speaking to Owen in even, measured tones and quickly offering the blond man a smoke from the crumpled pack he pulled from his breast pocket.
“You’re right, kid, I don’t know her. I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking. I bet you’re right. I bet she watches for you everyday.”
Owen had stared at his companion and chewed on his bottom lip; he seemed torn, as if he secretly suspected that Tanny were somehow making fun of him but desperately wanted to believe otherwise. His kicked at a pile of pebbles with his foot and adjusted the backpack slung over his shoulders, immediately running his fingers through his hair afterward.
“You… your really think so?”
Tanny smiled and lit a cigarette of his own when Owen finally refused the offer with a shake of his head.
“Sure, kid… that’s the power of love, right? When you get to Tuscon, she’ll come running into your arms. It’ll be just like in the movies, you’ll see.”
Owen’s face had brightened and that far-away expression passed over his face again; Tanny could see the tension psychically leave his companion’s body: the droop of the shoulders, the way his chest seemed to deflate a little, how his eyes were no longer narrow slits….
“Yeah,” Owen said dreamily, “I bet you’re right, Tanny. We’ll have us a little adobe house with some cactus in the yard with enough guns and food to see us through. And maybe you and your brother can come visit us someday. Yeah… that’d be pretty cool, too.”
The rest of the afternoon had been filled with the usual small talk: places they’d been, people they’d met, and little snippets of news they’d garnered along the way. Tanny had kept expecting Owen to apologize for his earlier outburst, but it was almost as if the exchange had never taken place; allusions to it didn’t even cause so much of a
