The Highwaymen - Episode 3
Episode 3: Our House
ICYMI: While escaping with supplies from the high school, Jason is seriously wounded. A zombie scratch across the throat causes extreme blood loss. Lance, Hurt, and Powell pull over and try to stop the bleeding…
“Put some more pressure on it!” Lance growled.
“I’m trying!” Hurt grunted. He pushed harder on Jason’s neck with the damp bandage. Blood soaked through, wasn’t stopping. Hurt threw the bandage over his shoulder and grabbed another from Powell. The clean bandage was quickly pressed against the gash.
“It’s not stopping. It must have nicked his jugular. He’s screwed man.” Powell punched the side of the van. “He’s white as a ghost.”
Lance turned away. It was quiet except for their voices echoing off the townhomes across the road. If there were any undead in those buildings or in the trees near them, it wouldn’t take long for them to smell Jason’s blood.
“This was a bad place to pull over.” Lance spat.
“His breathing has stopped!”
Hurt shook Jason. Jason’s eyes rolled to the back of his head.
“Jason, wake up. Wake up!”
Powell put his ear to Jason’s chest, “His pulse is gone. Starting CPR!” He shoved Hurt away and pushed repeatedly below Jason’s sternum. “Do we have a defibrillator?”
Lance leaned down to the medical bag and clawed through it.
“No. We didn’t bring it.”
“Shit! CPR isn’t working.”
Lance and Hurt stood silent as Powell continued CPR, gripping their weapons tight, scanning the horizon for someone or something to take their frustration out on.
After a solid minute, Powell stepped away.
“Jason’s dead.” Powell conceded and wiped his forehead.
Lance gathered all the medical gear back into the duffel bag and zipped it up. “Grab his legs.”
Hurt unlatched the van’s cargo door, rolled it open, and they lifted their fallen comrade into the back. Jason was laid beside the bundles of food he had gathered only minutes before. Hurt closed the door and latched it, as Lance moved back to the Charger.
The gate closed behind the van. It was a barricaded gate, fortified by sheets of metal, and lined all over in barbed and razor wire. Their base was formerly a junkyard; a place where cars and trash went to rot, rust, or to be forgotten. Much of the junkyard’s perimeter was built up in a similar fashion with razor wire and metal. What was once a deposit of waste, was now a goldmine. Sheet metal, motor parts, and virtually everything one would need to construct anything was readily available, just in used condition. Acres of scrap heaps, gutted cars, and oxidized shells surrounded by their secured fence with a wooden sniper nest at each corner.
The junkyard was in a unique location. It was between the suburbs and the industrial section of the city, accessible by a main highway, yet secluded enough to avoid contact with large groups of the undead and the still-living.
“Home, sweet home,” Lance mumbled as he parked his Charger near the entrance. The delivery van backed toward a makeshift warehouse constructed from recycled materials.
Weaving between aisles of shanties, Lance approached his own shack. He could hear Hurt and Powell opening the van behind him, unloading the food, and unloading Jason’s body. His supposed protégé. Jason was relatively new to the clan and the lifestyle of the Highwaymen, but he was eager and competent. After the disease struck, there were essentially two types of people. There were those that fought for survival, teaming up, trying to rebuild society usually in the remote areas of the country. Then there were others who basked in the glow of this lawless new world. The freedom it allowed enthralled them. No credit scores, no legal obligations, no bills, and few rules of morality. The latter were the Highwaymen.
Still, Lance couldn’t help but feel as if he’d failed Jason. His inner dialogue continued as he pushed open his front door, the remnants of a refrigerator door. It was dark inside, one lit candle sitting on his desk providing the only light. The shanty was very Spartan, consisting of the desk, a bed, and a bathroom area cordoned off with curtains.
Jason…
Lance propped the shotgun up in the corner and stepped toward his desk to unload his pockets. A form in the darkness shoved him, his back pinned against the wall. Lance reached out, but his wrists were grabbed and held down by thin feminine hands. Her lips attacked his, a violent, ravenous kiss. She pulled away suddenly and slapped him hard.
“When I heard only three returned,” she cooed. “I was afraid you were dead.”
“You should know better than that.” He thrust her away hard; she banged into the opposite wall, rattling it. Suddenly, he was pinning her. “I’m invincible, Buttercup.”
At that angle, the candlelight made her features faintly visible. A sleeve of tattoos on her left arm, her dark, sunken eyes, spiked hair. She was at least a foot or more shorter than Lance but had better muscle definition than the average man. Her tight abdomen and belly button ring were showing in her pink bikini top and leather pants. Lance didn’t know her real name and didn’t care. She was anything but a buttercup, which started as a joke, but stuck. She was his and he was hers.
“My invincible man.” Buttercup harshly pulled off his duster and flung it on the floor. Lance picked her up off the floor and threw her onto the bed. He pounced on top of her and yanked at her bikini strings. They ripped off their clothes like animals in heat, shedding their fur. But unlike animals, their actions were far from natural. Their bodies slammed together as if they were struggling to bruise, beat, and damage the other, almost an act of violence, anger, destruction. Each fought to consume the other. Their lips, teeth, and hands grasped at anything.
The bed was too soft. Buttercup rolled them both until they fell hard onto the dirt ground. Lance took it as a challenge, stared into her eyes, and rolled on top of her. He held her down, one hand for both her wrists and the other on her throat. Her legs wrapped around him.
The sun had gone down, and torches were lit all over the junkyard. Lance sat at his desk, which then had multiple candles burning. Wax dripped down the thin candles as Lance studied the driver’s license he’d picked up earlier.
“What are you doing?” Buttercup called from the bed, naked under the blanket. Lance was shirtless, his own tattoos showing. His back was covered.
“Reading.”
“Don’t worry about any of that. He’s dead.”
“Go back to sleep.”
She sighed, “Did you know him or something?”
“No.” Lance flipped the card over. He had been an organ donor. The irony wasn’t enough to amuse Lance. “I just think sometimes.”
“Stop thinking, Lance. It doesn’t suit you.” She fell back against her pillow.
“His name was Francis Alan Jackson. He was forty-seven years old. Didn’t live far from the school.”
“And?”
“I wonder, what was he like? What did he like to do? Was he picking up his kid when the virus hit? Maybe he was a teacher, or just happened to be walking by the school…”
“Or maybe he was a pedo that liked staring at kids’ asses. Some sick, perverted drifter that made excuses to pass by the school every day.”
“Your kind of man.” Lance sneered.
“Damn straight. I could pass for a high school student. I bet that perv would have loved me. I know my teachers did.”
Lance opened a drawer and placed the card on top of a stack of driver’s licenses, binding them with a rubber band. He closed the drawer, stood up, and stretched, “I’m gonna go meet the guys for a drink and say my goodbyes to Jason. You wanna come?”
“Nope,” she blurted. Buttercup definitely personified the new world’s ideology. It’s amazing that she’d even accepted monogamy, at least for the moment. “Do whatever you want. I’m not waiting up for you.”
Lance grabbed a green camo t-shirt from a pile in the corner; the dirty laundry pile, but it didn’t matter anymore. There were few rules and even fewer cares. Hygiene was a luxury they rarely embraced. Lance stepped out of the shack and into the night.
Powell, Lance, and Hurt slammed their shot glasses on the table, hard. Another round of whiskey was poured. The pub was empty except for the three men. Like all the other structures in the junkyard, it was built of sheets of scrap metal and car parts. As ragtag as it was, it had been decorated voraciously using items scrounged during past raids. Sports memorabilia, Irish pub décor, and posters crowded the walls, often overlapping. Anything that might remind them of long-lost civilization found a home in the pub.
“To Jason,” Hurt held up his liquor.
“To Jason,” Powell and Lance repeated, and the trio swallowed their booze.
Lance grimaced as the burn dove down his chest, “He didn’t even make it long enough to get his nickname.”
“Doesn’t matter much, Lance,” Powell poured another shot for each of them. “Nobody uses those nicknames. You don’t use yours. Only Hurt uses his.”
Hurt was shirtless; his massive bulk and scars showing in the torchlight, “I was going to christen him Voorhees. You know, like Jason Voorhees? Friday the 13th? And he always had that damn machete with him. I was looking forward to seeing his reaction…”
“To Jason!” Powell interrupted.
“To Jason!”
They downed their shots and then were silent, letting their stomachs settle. As the alcohol invaded their blood, the images from the day slowly faded, temporarily at least. The decaying body of Francis Jackson, the undead students, Jason’s bleeding neck…
“Do you ever regret your decision, Lance?” Powell broke the silence. “You know, regret not heading west with the others?”
“Who, Noah and Lisa? Nah. They were alright, but they wanted stability, security. That’s not my style. Move to the country in the middle of nowhere and sit out the end of the world? No, thanks. I wouldn’t want to miss it. I need a front row seat.”
“Well, you got one here, brother,” Hurt chuckled. “You aren’t going to miss much as a highwayman.