“If you wanted what’s best for your brother, you’d encourage him to stay here,” I said.
Santiago shrugged and held up both hands. “All I’m saying is, I wouldn’t want to be in your position.Boss.” He stood, clearly finished with what he’d come here to say. “I do appreciate you taking care of my brother. He needed someone like you.”
“Hestillneeds someone like me.”
“Maybe not as much anymore. Not now that I’m here. Anyway, rest up. You’ve got a lot to think about.”
Santiago left, and I was certain of one thing: I fucking hated that guy.
He reminded me too much of myself.
I dozeduntil the late afternoon. Kitten removed my prosthetic leg for me and rubbed out my thigh, which had started to cramp due to all the activity of the past couple days. He refreshed my ice pack for me while I napped, then casted my arm, taking great care not to jostle me too much. When it was finished and to his liking, I asked him to sign my cast, which he did, adding a little heart for the dot in the “i” of his name. So fucking cute.
“Stay with me until we have to go down,” I told him, and he climbed into bed beside me and laid his head across my stomach. I played with his hair, letting the soft curls pass through my fingers like silk, while he updated me on what had happened in our absence–one of the ducks had laid an egg, Artemis had snared two rabbits, LMP rolled in something rotten and Teresa had to give her a bath… I listened to his idle chatter. I’d never get tired of this. I’d never allow anyone–not even his brother–to take him from me.
Feeling a bit more refreshed and a lot more sober, we went downstairs for our daily meal. Our first order of business was to report back on what we’d discovered while scavenging. After Kitten and I gave our account of what we’d seen of the military base and what we’d encountered at the CVS, I highlighted the biggest takeaway from that experience.
“They’re evolving. They’re faster, more agile, younger in age, and they can hunt in daylight.”
The expressions of the other Assholes were grim as they digested that news.
“This means we have to be careful whenever we’re outside the compound,” I continued. “Pair up at a minimum with someone acting as scout, carry your radios, always inform the watchtower as to your whereabouts. Everyone carries their weapons outside the gate. Treat this as a high alert.”
“This is going to make hunting and fishing much harder,” Artemis said.
“Should we do a cull?” Macon asked. We’d floated the idea when we arrived here. The Rabids in the area were pretty easy targets outside our gates. We could shoot them down in the nighttime from the watchtower and then decapitate and burn them the next day.
“I don’t know if that would hurt us or help us. Rabids are territorial. They hunt in packs. If we kill off the current residents of Shady Brook Acres, who's to say the pack that moves in wouldn’t be worse?” I said. At least our Rabids seemed to prefer night time for hunting and moved relatively slowly. Of course, things might change.
“For now, we’ll increase our security.” I pulled out the security camera I’d taken from the CVS and placed it on the table, then looked at our resident engineers. “Think you two can work on a CCTV system so we can monitor outside the fence?”
“Yeah, we’ll make this a priority,” Wylie said while Gizmo inspected the device.
“I’d like to hook up as many cameras as we can. We can scavenge the neighborhood for more. It’ll make it easier to monitor the Rabids. We gotta determine their weaknesses and exploit them,” I said.
“Which brings us to our other order of business,” Artemis said, “the newcomers.”
“Mybrotherand his friends,” Kitten said, giving her a withering side-eye. I was glad, for once, to not be on the receiving end of that look.
“We could use more bodies for watchtower shifts and hunting parties,” Macon said, “especially with these new protocols in place.”
“That’s four more mouths to feed, and we don’t have enough supplies to get us through winter as it is,” Artemis countered.
“Winter’s a long way off, and we’ll have time to scavenge before then,” Macon answered. It was interesting watching the two of them argue, the heated looks they gave each other made it seem like they might actually be enjoying it.
“I don’t like strangers,” Teresa said while compulsively petting the cat on her lap. LMP’s one good eye blinked lazily. She wasn’t supposed to be at the dinner table, but it was one of those rules we let slide.
“I was a stranger,” Kitten said to her. “And you wanted me to stay.”
“I mainly wanted Little Miss Purrfect to stay. And you too, I guess. I wouldn’t mind if the girl stayed,” Teresa conceded.
“We can’t split them up,” I said to the group. “Santiago told me already, it’s all of them or none of them.”
“When did he say that?” Kitten asked.
“When you were getting me ice.”
“What else did he say?”
