graveyarddirtseries - Tumblr blog

graveyarddirtseries · 2 years

Text

Graveyard Dirt & Salt

Chapter Ten

After months of everyone on the run, on the lookout, on the defence, it was nice to know there was a wall and someone on the wall with a rifle patrolling it, so everyone sort of gathered around the blazing fire in lawn chairs and on whatever else they could perch on and talk, and tell tales and remember the way things used to be.

Chapter Ten

“So Jack and I, we're facing down ten, maybe twelve dead, we have nothing left to fight with, we're exhausted, dripping sweat. Atlanta was going through a heatwave then, remember?”

They were sitting in the cloister dining room, packed in like sardines, listening to stories, chatting, getting to know one another and the Lieutenant was itching to be anywhere else.

Mena was pissed at him, Benny too, Delgado seemed ambivalent, which was – quite frankly, a goddamned relief.

“Delgado shows up, half a goddamn army, sorry, a lot of marines with him and they mow these dead down like a hot knife through butter. We owe him our lives.”

The man, known as Black Cat Billy, was relating a story to the fascinated nuns about how he and his music partner were touring when it happened. From Nashville, both men had been playing smoky little blues clubs with their brand of bluegrass, roots, and folk music. It at least explained the guitar and banjo, but it didn't explain the damned hats.

Taking up his empty plate and glass, he headed for the kitchens at the back of the cloister building, wanting nothing more than to escape the crowd and get to work digging. He could take his punishment, it wasn't anything he wasn't used to.

“Lieutenant, sir, hold up,” Delgado said, catching up with him in the kitchen. “I'll come help you dig.”

“You don't have to call me sir,” he said, placing his dirty dishes beside the sink where the nuns like them put at the end of the meals. “No corps, no chain of command.”

“It's respect, sir.” Delgado pointed out simply.

“Respect?” The Lieutenant asked with a dry laugh. “For what? Surviving? I haven't accomplished anything.”

They stepped out of the kitchen via the back door and stood in Mena's pretty little rose garden for a good long time, staring up at the sky, before the Lieutenant stepped down from the stoop and headed off, Delgado at his heels.

“I get why you jumped,” Delgado said in his soft, almost chemical purr. It was like a man's death rattle and bedroom voice all wrapped in one.

“Is that so?”

“We take the bastards down,” Delgado went on. “Those were my orders, and I'm assuming they were yours too. So when I say 'Lieutenant, sir', I mean it. Chain of command might be broken all the way to the top, but you outrank me and I respect that.”

“I worked payroll,” the Lieutenant said suddenly, turning around to face the man. “I filled out benefit forms and signed pay stubs before all of this went down.”

Delgado was quiet.

“When I came back from my tour, they sat me behind a desk and I filed paperwork for three years before all of this shit.” He went on firmly. “Just because I'm a Lieutenant, doesn't make me a fighter anymore. I jumped from that damned horse, because if they stopped to eat my ass, it gave you and Benny and Mena more time to get away safe.”

“But you did do a tour,” Delgado insisted.

“Two of them,” he replied.

Delgado nodded. “And they put you behind a desk?”

“It's not what you think it is.”

“You saw action though.”

The Lieutenant inhaled. “Look. Just...thank you for the help in digging, but don't call me 'sir', alright?”

“I'm going to keep calling you 'sir', with all due respect, because as long as you and I are kicking, the chain of command, the corps is still alive.”

“Mais,” the Lieutenant sighed. “Good luck with thinking that. I'm going to move on and focus on the here and now.”

“We started this whole shit show with twenty men under Sergeant Williams,” Delgado said firmly. “Every last one of them died saving these people I have now. I'm all that's left. There has to be something remaining of the corps, because otherwise they died for nothing.”

“They were dying before this conflict,” the Lieutenant said. “Death is a constant, battle or old age.”

“I can't believe you're this callous,” Delgado said. “When I've seen the patches on your pack, names sewn on it that aren't yours. Desert brown, black lettering. Haywood, Scott, Gates, March...”

“...Chartier, Morrison, yeah I know.” He finished. “They were mine. The ones that died.”

“So, you can't say you don't care about their deaths, about the corps.”

“I care about people, Corporal, not institutions. Not anymore. Because at the end of the day, whether you're a marine or a nun, you're just someone trying to survive. I just want to be someone trying to survive too.”

Delgado nodded. “Okay. I get it. What should I call you then?”

“You can call me Lieutenant, or my friends used to call me Faye, my Mamere called me Fate. I don't care, just...I'm not a 'sir'. I was never knighted.” He finished with a small grin.

Nodding the other man seemed to be thinking this over, before he said, “then I'll call you Fate, because we were brothers once, in the corps.”

The Lieutenant smiled wide. “I like that. Ain't nobody around here calls me anything but Lieutenant and to be honest, I'm ready for a change.”

Sitting, dirty and sweaty, legs dangling into the hole they had just dug for the new privy, the Lieutenant and Corporal Delgado watched the sun as it began to set, eyes on the beautiful purple and orange tones of the sunset, mouths drawn into grim lines.

They managed to sit in silence, for once the Lieutenant had nothing to say, he didn't want to say anything. It was a beautiful sunset.

It was only as he took a quick glance around, always cautious these days, that he noticed a small figure watching them from the closest side of the cloister, large, dark eyes solemn.

He held out his hand to invite Annie over and the child approached quickly, hopping to sit beside him.

“You not gonna see Benny?” He asked the child.

She shook her head, clearly still angry at the man.

“Am I your new favourite until I get under your skin?” He teased.

Annie shrugged.

Drawing the girl in close to him, his arm around her shoulders he said, “don't you think maybe Benny might be lonely without you?”

Again she shrugged.

“Why don't we go and find him together, yeah?”

“Okay,” she relented finally, eyes on Delgado who stared back at her evenly.

“You good?” The Lieutenant asked, as he stood up.

Delgado nodded. “Yeah, just gonna enjoy the sunset for a bit longer.”

“Alright. I'll, uh, send someone over when we figure out where to house y'all.” Leading Annie towards the infirmary, he figured they could look there first for Benny.

The child took hold of his hand as they walked and the Lieutenant faltered for a moment. He wasn't used to children.

Inside the infirmary Sister's Mary Monica and Mary Claire were in a deep conversation with both Medicine Man Jack and Black Cat Billy, the two musicians entertaining the women with stories and legends of the clubs they played, while in the far corner of the infirmary three of the women from the new group settled themselves in for their own deep conversation.

The Lieutenant nodded wordlessly at those who glanced his way, before he backed out, heading next for the church where Benny sometimes liked to linger, haunting the confessional and the pews.

They found Benny just outside the church, standing off to the side, leaning against the shadowy side of the stile. He had changed out of his priestly garb, back into the floral patterned button up shirt he had scrounged from somewhere deep in someone's closet and grey tweed pants. His shoes were once again polished and he looked more put together than he did as a priest. Once more he was the fancy man.

“You lose someone?” He greeted Benny.

Still posted against the church, one foot casually hooked on the decorative stone foundation behind him, Benny said, “story of my life.”

Releasing Annie's hand, the Lieutenant popped a squat comfortably on the grass and laced his boot. The skeeters were out, buzzing loudly in his ear and he was about ready to retire inside to avoid them.

Annie approached Benny slowly.

“You gonna be mad at me forever or just for tonight?” Benny asked her.

She shrugged.

“Well, you better make your peace with me soon,” Benny replied calmly, “because I need my daily workout in.”

Quickly stooping, the man grabbed hold of Annie as the child giggled and flipping her horizontal in his arms, began to do curls with her all the while Annie was laughing and squirming happily.

“You forgive me yet?” Benny demanded, lowering the girl about waist high.

“No!” Annie shouted stubbornly, though her eyes were shining merrily.

“No?” Benny demanded, raising her over his head and beginning to use her to do a shoulder press.

Deciding the two had made up enough for him to get some privacy and some rest before he took over the wall watch, the Lieutenant turned to leave, only stopping when Benny called out to him.

Approaching him, now doing triceps extensions with Annie draped behind him, Benny said, “you see we lost our beds in the infirmary?”

“Ah, it's fine. I'm going to bed in the church tonight.”

“I can't do that,” Benny replied. “Those stained glass saints give me the fucking frights.”

“Are we planning on bunking up together or what?” The Lieutenant teased.

Benny chuckled. “Well, look,” he began.

When he didn't finish that thought, the Lieutenant pressed. “Look?”

Benny shrugged. “I trust you more than them right now, okay?”

“Takes some balls to admit that.”

“It's not that I think they're...I just don't know them.”

“You thinking we stick together?”

Easing Annie down to the ground, Benny covered her ears and leaned in to whisper, “you know, if you ask me, I think we should creep into the cloister and slide in beside that Abbess.”

The Lieutenant laughed. “Sure, she'll castrate us both.”

“Worth it,” Benny returned.

“I do think they wouldn't mind if we crept into the cloister to sleep in a couple unoccupied beds. But maybe it's best to ask, yeah? I like my balls where they are.”

They had found themselves sitting around the bonfire later that night, where it seemed everyone, with the exception of Annie and a few of the older nuns, had congregated out of a need to socialize.

It was half endearing and half torture.

Sitting on the wall nearest the bonfire, his back to the flames, his face out towards the cold, dark of the woods just beside the rose garden in the south, the Lieutenant actively listened to the conversation happening behind him and watched the shadows in front of him for signs of trouble.

“So you find yourself heading for home, but it's like swimming upstream. Between folk who were wishing and hoping for this day to get out their undiagnosed anger issues and the dead, you find you don't get far. Jack and I have been swimming home since this all began, but things upon things happen.”

“Do you think anyone will be there waiting for you?”

“I don't hold out any great hope, no ma'am.”

“You have to hope though.”

“What about you, Father, any one waiting at home for you?”

“Home? No,” it was Benny who spoke. “Haven't had one of those for a long time.”

“Where was it when you had it?”

There was a long pause, before Benny said, “you play those things or do you just like to hold them?”

Glancing over his shoulder, the Lieutenant spied Benny motioning to the instruments in the hands of the two men from the new group.

“We pick, we play, but blues don't get sung without a story to tell.”

“Thought you played bluegrass, Black Cat,” Delgado pointed out.

“What about the Cajun?” Benny said loudly suddenly. “He's a raconteur of the highest calibre. Ask him for a sad yarn.”

Glancing over his shoulder, the Lieutenant studied the group, only six, maybe seven feet from him, their faces lit by the blaze they sat around, all of them staring up at him.

“You want a story to inspire the blues?” He finally drawled after a long, silent moment of being on display, rubbing a hand over the stubble on his jaw. “We all have our sad stories. Make the misere of yourself thinking of them, but then again the blues always liked to sing deepest in the chests of the miserable and downtrodden. You all want a sad story, look out over that wall, see the dead. See women in wedding dresses, men in their bathrobes, little girls and baby boys, see the way this infection swept over them. Fast food workers, just wiping down tables, thinking about the movie they're going to see with their friends after their shift, old women missing the life they never had because of their old men, granddaddies and mothers, sons and nieces, people who had plans and got up one morning about six months ago, brushed their teeth, showered, put on their favourite shoes and ducked out the door into the world. Think of photographs left on the walls of abandoned homes, cars so carefully saved up for, homes lovingly built with someone's own two hands. Quilts and scrapbooks, paintings in colours of red and orange and fire and some colours I ain't never really heard a name for. All these things created by a race of people on the verge of extinction. Newborn babies that ain't never had a chance to live, dead and rotting in hospitals, forgotten in the maze of halls and the panic of the last days of civilization as we knew it.”

Somewhere in the middle of all of that Black Cat Billy had begun to strum idly on his guitar, picking it in the chord of C Major, the great blues chords struck harmoniously as he spoke.

Continuing on, despite the blues strumming, the Lieutenant said, “even we as survivors had plans that were laid waste by all of this. Retirement, dates, weddings, a baby coming,” he motioned to the young pregnant woman. “Some of us were rotting away before any of this, some of us were living life to the fullest. Do we deserve to survive while others didn't? Nah, I don't know. Maybe in surviving despite all of it, maybe in carrying on the memories of humanity before the fall we as survivors are made into something more like a brazen bull than a golem made of clay.

Maybe we don't deserve this life, so called.

Maybe by thumbing our noses at this life we are thumbing our noses at the dead. Those we mourn and those we fear.

Maybe this was God's will? Maybe this wasn't.

Maybe it was just chaos and chaos is the most frightening thing we're running from.

Maybe there's faith in this world now, maybe there isn't.

Maybe we need to live for the dead or – at the very least, survive.

When my men got to the hospital, where we were sent before it went all wrong, there was no hope. We opened fire on anything that moved.

Maybe we killed innocent survivors, maybe we only killed the dead.

This is chaos.

I wandered for so long by myself after that, after my men left, went AWOL, gone home or died in the woods, that when I found this place, nuns just in their garden like pretty white roses, I thought that this was God.

And maybe it's a balance. Chaos and God.

Or maybe it's just numbers and happenstance.

And that's your blues, right there.”

In the night, the strumming of the guitar, the cracking of the fire, nothing else made a sound.

Suddenly one of Delgado's people spoke up, softly, “my husband and I were just coming back from looking at a cabin we were going to buy once we sold our house. A place to retire to and live out our lives.”

Her name was Beverly, he believed. Beverly...Yeo? Something. And she was weary and small and strong looking.

“I was heading to Atlanta to get an abortion,” the pregnant woman said,

What was her name? Hazel? Hazel something.

“I'd just gotten released,” Kane, the tough kid beside him on the wall, spoke up. “Got in the door and my piece of shit step brother said 'we gotta go'. Dumb fuck got picked off early.”

“We were heading to a gig in Atlanta,” Medicine Man said. “Our van got stopped on the highway, stuck in the rush out of Atlanta.”

“I just got my acceptance letter into Ole Miss,” Auggie said. “I was headed into their School of Law.”

“You'd make a really good lawyer, Auggie,” Hazel said.

The young man smiled shyly. “Thanks.”

“God willing you're the last of them though,” Kane muttered.

“Aw, lawyers ain't bad, it's the cops you gotta watch out for.” Medicine Man replied.

Black Cat, grinning, hummed as he continued to play his blues tune.

“How many of y'all lost somebody on the road getting here?” The Lieutenant asked, turning the conversation back to the blues they had all wanted. “How many lives wasted to the dead?”

When everyone sobered good and proper, the Lieutenant nodded. “There's your blues.”

In the devastated silence that followed, it took Benny groaning loudly to break the mood.

“Fuck man. I was thinking some swampfolk tale of misery, not harsh reality.”

“Why don't you tell us a story then, Paon? Some kind of Vegas 'one moment you're on top and the next you've lost it all' story.”

Benny was stone still for a moment, before nodding, saying, “you want a story? Okay. Let me try your hat on for a night.

There was a young man, grew up in a trailer park near Galveston. His was an unwanted teenaged pregnancy, carried to term and aborted the minute the young mother wanted to go out and live her young life.

He didn't have a bedroom in the double wide, lived in a closet in the hallway, ignored mostly, until it was time to get his ass beaten by whatever lowlife was screwing his mother that week.

Teased, bullied and tormented for trash in school, he kept to himself, minded his own, did okay, not great.

And then one day he was sent to live with his grandparents. Those were the golden days of his youth, as close to a normal life as he could have. Meals, attention, affection, church, though he didn't care much for that. And he was happy and for the first time he begun to think he would make something of himself. He would break the chains of extreme poverty and be a, I don't know, small business owner or veterinarian. Something simple, but better than some poor bastard working in the local supermarket.

And just as this boy began to have ideas of a better life for himself, his grandparents were killed in a car accident, a drunk driver slammed head on into their car as they came home from the store.

They had only gone into town to get the boy a new pair of sneakers for gym class. His old sneakers were fine, but this boy wanted nicer ones, the ones all the other kids were wearing and even though they cost more than most shoes should ever cost, his grandparents loved him so much they broke and went into town for them.

The boy was in the backseat at the time and heard the only people he loved in his young life, dying as they waited for the ambulance. Trapped in the back he heard the gurgling of his grandmother as she struggled to breath with a lacerated throat.

So this boy went back to live in Galveston with his piece of shit mother and suffered through high school.

As soon as he turned eighteen, he joined the army. It promised schooling and good pay, great benefits, and it was a sight better than working at some shithole corporate big box store.

But what the recruiters didn't tell the boy, what they don't tell anyone is that the army fucking sucks. Gruelling workouts, bullshit from bigger, brawnier, bro-ier men and when you make it through bootcamp, they shove a rifle in your hand and send you off to fight a politician's war.

And you kill some people, you hope they're bad guys, but fog of war, huh? And you get good at killing people and you return back from your tour for a couple of months downtime. To cool off a little, a nice little break.

And this boy, on his downtime, meets this pretty girl in a floral dress in Atlantic City and she says she works at the local florists shop in Providence, Rhode Island of all fucking places and she's so adorable and kind and good and this boy is intimated. She's too good for him. He's just some piece of shit kid, doesn't have a goddamn thing going for him except killing.

But fuck if that girl doesn't fall in love with him somehow and the boy's overwhelmed, because holy fuck they're both in love with each other and someone actually wants him.

So he marries her. He has to go back overseas in a week and so he just marries this girl and she accepts.

And so he sends his money home to her, to take care of her. That's what he thought married people did, so he did it too. Like he was normal and had the right to act normal.

But by now she had managed to buy out the florist shop and it's hers and she buys them a house with her money so that when he comes home, after his last tour and he gets his papers to walk, he has this beautiful brick home in Providence and it's beautiful and this boy, now a man, lives in golden sunlight and flowers everywhere and this world is so much different from any he's ever known.

It's heaven and he's actually happy and he feels safe with this girl.

And then one month she gets a period that lasts longer than normal. And her back begins to hurt and the doctor's fuck it all up with misdiagnosis after misdiagnosis. It's arthritis in her back, it's kidney stones.

And she keeps bleeding and she's in pain and she's bloating and the blood turns black and vile and then finally after she collapses, a doctor with a degree that's not from a fucking cereal box diagnosis's her.

Uterine cancer. And it's late stage. This beautiful girl is terminal and dying.

And it begins to dawn on this man, that everything golden he touches turns black and...after the girl...passes away, this man resolves to never allow himself to touch anything golden again. He goes far away from his home, he removes himself from anything he's ever known and becomes someone else. And he resolves himself to the fact that he will always be a piece of shit from Galveston.”

Everyone was quiet again, before Hazel asked, “what was her name?”

Benny inhaled sharply. “I don't know kid, it's a fucking story. Call her whatever you want.”

“That ain't a fucking story,” Kane said.

“You were married, Mr. Malone?” Mena asked in her pretty silver bells tone.

“That's not the point of the story,” Benny argued lightly. “The point is we're all dying, some of us just faster than others. Make of this world what you can or some fucking shit.”

Everyone was quiet for a bit, before Black Cat Billy said, “that's the blues right there.”

“You know,” Mena began simply, “for as much as you loved her, she loved you just as much.”

Benny's face sort of darkened, his brow lowering, before he shrugged and stood up.

The Lieutenant watched the shorter man as he drifted into the shadows of the cloister, before disappearing out of sight and for a moment he thought about leaving the man to his shadows, but he knew of the abject loneliness of shadows and loss, so he also stood up, just as Mena did as well.

They gazed at each other over the flames of the fire, before trailing after Benny together. Not sure why, but the Lieutenant touched Delgado on the shoulder as he passed and motioned for the other man to join them as they all headed towards the cloister.

Benny was sullenly seated on the front steps of the church when they found him, elbows hooked on the step above his shoulders, eyes on the stars overhead. He tensed up as they approached.

“We should all talk,” the Lieutenant said.

Benny leaned forward, less tense now and more curious, clasping his hands and setting his elbows on his knees to brace himself. “About what?”

“Well, there's four chef's in the kitchen now,” the Lieutenant pointed out. “We need a proper chain of command.”

“Ever the marine,” Benny murmured, pushing to his feet. “Okay. I say you put me in charge.”

“I think it should be the Abbess,” the Lieutenant argued. “She runs this place, after all.”

“No offence meant,” Delgado broke in calmly in his soft, smoky sort of voice, “but I don't think a religious leader is what we need right now.”

“You want it to be you, new guy?” Benny demanded.

“No,” Delgado said. “I just...don't think the Catholic church is who we should listen to on the facts of the dead and murdering a bunch of rednecks.”

“But it's her convent,” the Lieutenant insisted. “She has the most right of any of us to be in charge.”

“I can be balanced,” Mena said. “There is a time and place for God, and I understand not everyone is a believer.”

“I think it should be the Lieutenant, he outranks all of us,” Delgado said.

“That you know of,” Benny argued.

“Sorry, I forgot you were in the army,” Delgado said. “Or...do you own a casino? Or...run weapons? None of us know.”

“You'll know all about me when I want you to know,” Benny said. “And as a business owner, yeah, I can run this group.”

“We should let the others vote,” Mena said finally. “Make it a fair democracy.”

“I'm a socialist, let's just raise up a Great Leader,” Benny said.

“Are you serious?” Delgado demanded.

“Always.” Benny said just as the Lieutenant said, “he's not.”

“Okay,” Benny finally said. “Let's do this. Let's worry about democracy when all is said and done with these rednecks, because to be honest, Mena's people are going to vote for Mena and Delgado's people are going to vote for him, we might end up with a tie. Let's give them some time to feel everyone out, see if they have any one else in mind.”

Everyone nodded in agreement.

“And I need a place to sleep tonight,” Benny added. “Because I need at least a damned pillow.”

“Me too,” the Lieutenant added.

“Same,” Delgado admitted.

“Well, you're going to have to figure something out,” Mena said. “Unfortunately, I offered the last of the empty dorms in the cloister to Kane and Mr. Billy and Jack.”

“Are you shitting me?” Benny demanded.

“Language and no I'm not,” Mena said. “I'm sorry.”

“Alright, then I'm climbing in with you unless you can find me something as good,” Benny stated.

“I'm locking my door tonight,” Mena stated, turning and walking off.

“You...” Benny huffed, before following her, “like hell you are! I need a pillow, dammit!”

“Army,” the Lieutenant offered as an explanation to Delgado who grinned as the two men turned to watch Benny trail after Mena into the cloister.

“Oh shit, he's really going to go for it,” Delgado murmured as Benny followed Mena inside.

Already on the move, the Lieutenant said, “I want to see this...”

Inside the cloister, the two men trailed a good distance back as Benny hurried after a fleeing Mena.

“Mr. Malone, really, I am sorry,” Mena said as she hurried into her room and closed the door in Benny's face.

The other two joined him as they stood by Mena's closed and locked door.

“Trying to sleep with a nun?” The Lieutenant demanded of Benny with a grin.

“Abbess,” Mena corrected from behind her door.

“I just want to sleep somewhere soft for once,” Benny said.

The Lieutenant straightened up, recalling the sofa in the sacristy. “Well, good luck...I'm going to sleep on a pew in the church,” he lied.

Benny narrowed his eyes at him, before it came to him too and he exclaimed, “you bastard! You're going for the couch!”

Running out of the cloister, Benny at his heels, Delgado curious, but also following as the Lieutenant hurried for the church to get to the sacristy sofa first.

They awoke in a pile on the sacristy sofa the next morning, Benny curled up at one end, the Lieutenant at the other, long legs tucked up, Delgado on the soft carpeting beside it sitting up, head resting against the Lieutenant's thigh.

“We need some more mattresses,” Benny murmured as the Lieutenant began to shift awake.

“At the very least some pillows,” Delgado added from the floor.

“I gotta get out hunting,” the Lieutenant said.

“Yeah, I'm gonna head out too,” Benny mumbled. “Find some leads on these men.”

“I can take a few people, do some recon and scrounging,” Delgado said.

“Sounds good, be back by dark though, yeah?” The Lieutenant replied, groaning as he hauled his carcass up and out of the sofa.

Benny chuckled and kicked out his legs. “Sofa's mine.”

Outside at the pump as he had a splash of water to clean himself up a little, the Lieutenant eyed some of the nuns as they went about their pre-breakfast chores, nodding politely to them.

“I spoke with a couple of the sisters,” Mena greeted him, startling him with how quietly she had approached.

“You need a bell,” he teased.

She smiled. “I spoke with some of the sisters and they agreed to share beds so that you and Corporal Delgado may have some beds tonight.”

“What about Benny?” He asked.

“Mr. Malone may share my bed,” Mena said with a small grin.

“With who?”

She laughed. “I'm teasing! He has a bed too. We made room.”

“You're not as funny as you think you are,” he replied.

“I am sorry, I didn't realize you boys didn't have beds until it was too late, most of the nuns were already asleep. Was it awful last night?”

He shook his head. “Naw, I've slept rougher.”

“When you get back today, I'll show you your room where you can put your things.” She said.

“Thank you, Missy.” He returned.

As Mena turned and left him, that dark haired boy -- Kane from Delgado's group sidled up.

“I wanna go hunting with you,” he said. “You got time for me?”

The Lieutenant nodded. “Sure.”

“Good, meet you at the gate,” the young man walked off.

Around the campfire Billy and Jack began to strum and sing a Merle Haggard song, while the others gathered to wait to get their morning coffee. It was beginning to feel cozy around the convent, people everywhere, people on the wall walking with rifles, making him feel safe and not so alone.

By the peach tree, Benny was playing with Annie, chasing the girl around the trunk, as Annie chased a kitten and laughed. Sitting nearby on a lawn chair, Sister Gertrude sat, a kitten of her own in her lap, her sun hat on, Hazel and a couple of others gathered at her feet, listening to the old nun offer up some wisdom as they cleaned guns.

The pregnant girl was leading one of the horses around, petting it and talking to it, while Sister Mary Claire groomed another one of their stolen horses.

They would need a stable or something for the horses eventually, he thought. Hell, right now they needed another dorm building for more beds and rooms, space for people to live comfortably, a little privacy. More privies, more...they could use a power source, if they could get a power source running, the cloister washrooms, complete with showers would be fine for everyone. Their water source was from a couple of wells, so it was unlikely it would ever run dry.

“You have the look of a man planning,” someone said from his side.

That young black boy from Delgado's group stood there -- Auggie, he believed, Grayson beside him.

The Lieutenant smiled. “Just thinking of the possibility of this place. We have something really good here.”

Auggie nodded. “Yeah, a high enough wall to keep us safe inside it. Hidden from maps and anyone looking to cause trouble.”

“You're a smart young man, lawyer, right?”

“I was going to be, yeah.”

“What do you know about running power? Like solar or wind?”

Auggie laughed. “Nothing, but...Billy might.”

“Billy?”

The young man nodded. “Yeah, he was an electrical engineer. Worked on wind turbines.”

“Are you kidding?”

Auggie shook his head. “No. He's smart, but didn't like the grind, I guess.”

“We need to think of building some kind of wagon or something for heavy loads, get those horses into town there's a hardware store there, some kind of agro place too. Maybe get some supplies back here. You think you and some of the others could do a little planning today around here? Find flat ground for new buildings? With the Abbess, of course, don't plan anything on her grounds without her.”

Auggie raised his eyebrows. “Me?”

“Sure, you seem like a smart kid,” the Lieutenant said. “Benny and Delgado and I are heading out today, so you and Mena can maybe work together on that. Grayson, if you could help them too?”

Grayson nodded.

“Sure,” Auggie said with a grin. “We can take care of that.”

“And talk to Billy about making a list of things we might need for getting some power to this place, if you could?”

Auggie nodded. “Sure.”

#graveyard dirt & salt series

2 notes · View notes

graveyarddirtseries · 3 years

Text

Hey, don't forget to follow and support me on ko-fi!

#buy me cat food #and i shall enjoy it with both my cats #kidding?#lol

1 note · View note

graveyarddirtseries · 3 years

Text

Graveyard Dirt & Salt

Chapter Nine

From out of the tall, un-managed grass of the laid waste cotton field they were riding in, a ghost, a sort of shadow rose up, then another and another. Three of them, blood on their faces from a fresh kill, eyes wide at the approach of another meal.

“You're gonna grow roots sitting there.”

For six days Annie had seated herself right in front of the wrought iron gate and stubbornly refused to move. For six days she screamed whenever someone would try to move her. Sure she came to eat when food was ready and certainly she made a trip to the hastily constructed privy when she had to and she slept in her bed, or rather laid there all night until her rage wore her out and she fell asleep.

But when she wasn't eating, shitting or sleeping, she was sitting in the same ass groove worn into the grass and sullenly staring out at the world beyond the gate.

Easing down beside her, the Lieutenant peered down the same worn cattle trail she was peering down and sighed.

“You know where Halloween pumpkins come from?” He asked the girl.

She seemed to ignore him.

“They used to be turnips, you know. Was a fellow named Stingy Jack, you know him?”

Again Annie seemed to ignore him.

“Well, anyways this man was a rotten sort, used to play all kinds of tricks and schemes, loved to drink. Anyways, one night Jack is at the bar, drinking and he runs out of money. Well, old Jack he wasn't ready to turn in, but at that moment the Devil comes by, checking up on the sinners at the bar and old Jack says to him 'I'd sell my soul for one last drink'.

The Devil thinks this is an easy one and turns himself into a sixpence – do you know what a sixpence is?”

Annie shrugged.

“It's like money from England...well, I think this story is Irish, but...do you know where Ireland is?”

Annie was still.

“Well, anyways, the Devil turns himself into a coin for Jack to buy his last drink with, but old Jack is a wily sort of old bugger, so he buys his drink and then steals back the Devil coin and shoves it into his wallet next to a silver cross he had been carrying, trapping the Devil in his wallet.

The Devil cried out 'let me out, let me out!' And Jack said he would if the Devil promised not to return to claim his soul for ten years.

Well, ten years pass and Jack is out walking on a dirt road one night and the Devil comes up to collect what's owed.

And old Jack says, 'I'll go, but first you have to get me an apple from that there tree'.

The Devil huffed and stomped his hoof, but figured it was easier that fighting old Jack, so he hops up into the tree to get Jack an apple.

As soon as the Devil is in that tree, Jack takes out his pocketknife and carves crosses all around the trunk of the tree, once more trapping the Devil.

'Let me down, let me down!' Shouts the Devil.

'I will, but you got to promise that you won't take my soul from me until I die of old age', says Jack.

The Devil, getting irritated at this point, huffs and agrees.

Well, some years later, old Stingy Jack dies and he gets to the gates of Heaven and Saint Peter says, 'no, can't come in, Jack. You were mean and drunk, and you cheated and you tricked people. You can't come in.'

So old Jack goes down to Hell to see if he can get in there. It's cold and lonely wandering the earth as a spirit and Hell is very warm.

Well, the Devil himself comes to the gates of Hell and he says 'no. I don't want you here, Jack. You're mean and spiteful and too tricky for even Hell.'

Old Stingy Jack considers this and finally asks the Devil, 'well, what do I do then?'

And the Devil says, 'you go back where you came from and you walk the earth'. And he throws an eternally burning ember from the fires of hell at Stingy Jack.

And old Jack he puts that ember in a hollowed out turnip he had in his pocket and he walked the earth. They say to this day old Jack is out there, tricky and sly, wandering the earth with his Jack O'Lantern.”

Annie sniffed to hide a small grin that was threatening to break on her face.

“Benny's like Jack,” she whispered.

“He sure is and he will always trick the Devil.”

Annie gazed back out at the cattle trail, her big, dark eyes taking in the world beyond the gate like a raven perched on the branch of a tree.

“When will this all be over?” She asked him.

The Lieutenant was startled. He thought maybe Annie knew that this was how things were now, but then again she was just a wee thing. Small and young.

“Oh, sweet pea, this is how things are now. There is no over.”

She was quiet, soaking in this information, before she said, “I just want to go home.”

“Where's home?” He asked.

Annie frowned, her face still.

Somewhere outside the wall a bobwhite warbled it's funny little shriek.

The child beside him stood up and took a small step towards the gate.

“I'd stay away from the gate, sweet pea,” the Lieutenant warned her, also getting to his feet.

Again the bobwhite shrieked and Annie hurried to the wrought iron, pressing herself against it to peer out. She tweeted back, a sweet little trill that the Lieutenant couldn't place.

From out of the bush lining the cattle trail, Benny emerged, still dressed in the cassock and grinning, hands up so Sister Dymphna on the wall wouldn't shoot him.

“Good morning,” he greeted casually.

“No shame in coming back defeated,” the Lieutenant teased cautiously, mildly panicked that the man had returned so quickly. Had he been forced to give up their position? Was he compromised?

“Hey, Cordelia,” Benny greeted the child at the gate, reaching through to tickle her cheek.

She pulled away quickly, angry at him for leaving her.

Catching Sister Dymphna who was descending from the wall to open the gate, the Lieutenant held her off from her task for a moment.

“Why are you back?” He asked the shorter man.

“Well, I scrubbed the mission, but...I brought gifts.” Benny explained.

“Guns?” The Lieutenant asked.

Benny grinned. “Sort of. Just...take it easy, okay?”

“Alright.”

“Okay, it's clear, come out!” Benny shouted over his shoulder.

The Lieutenant dropped his shoulder enough so he could slide his rifle off if he needed, as out of the woods came nine people, all of them with their hands up. He still instinctively dropped his shoulder further, preparing for trouble.

“Who are these people?” He hissed at Benny.

“They're friends.”

“You brought people back to the convent?!” The Lieutenant snarled. “You compro-”

“Calm down,” Benny said. “I wouldn't endanger Cordy. She's the only one I like. These people and us have one thing in common. We want this woman stealing group dead. Now let us in.”

The Lieutenant held Dymphna back again, putting her behind him, where Annie was being shoved too.

“I ran across them in the middle of gunning down a group of these men who were trying to steal a couple of their women,” Benny explained. “Let us in. Please? We need to talk.”

“They leave their weapons outside the gate.” The Lieutenant bartered.

“Sorry, but no.” One of them said. He had a voice like the thick black smoke of a forest fire, the kind with embers and a danger.

Studying his marine gear, the Lieutenant asked, “are you a fan or a real marine?”

“Corporal Angel Delgado, I was posted at HQ, I know of you, Lieutenant Vancoughnett.”

“Delgado?” The Lieutenant racked his brain, there were enough marines at HQ that he could only catch the taste at the tip of his tongue on who the man was.

“Hey, Cajun,” Benny said firmly. “Look at me.”

The Lieutenant looked over at the fancy man.

“Trust me, okay? You want these people inside.”

“It's not my convent,” he finally said.

“I'll get Mother Mena,” Dymphna offered, she tried to take Annie with her, but the girl collapsed on the ground in non-violent protest, becoming dead weight.

Benny chuckled. “I taught her that.”

The Lieutenant remained quiet, taking in everything he could of the group of people behind Benny. Delgado was a marine, so he assumed the woman to his right was as well. There three other women, four men. They didn't look very threatening, they looked tired and hungry and two of them had instruments strapped to their backs.

Mena sidled up beside him, as quiet as a kitty cat and eyed them for a moment, before saying, “welcome. You can come on in. But this is a place of peace, please be mindful of that. Dymphna, please get the gate.”

As the gate was opened, Benny strode inside, the others following him slowly. As they passed the Lieutenant, one of them, a young man with dark hair sort of puffed up his chest at him with a smug grin and kept walking. The two with the instruments brought up the rear, both of them tipping their hats to him politely.

The Lieutenant made sure the gate was locked and secured, and Dymphna was back on the wall, before he followed the group, heading for the church Annie sullenly walking beside him.

Inside the church, he took a seat in the back with Annie, feeling like it wasn't his rodeo anymore. The convent was Mena's, the group was Benny's, he was just muscle, he supposed.

Benny, ascending the pulpit, grinned down at the others. “Good morning,” he said like a priest preparing to begin his sermon, and as he was dressed, the Lieutenant almost could forget the purpose of them being there. “Alright, let's get into it. Abbess, I missed you. You look cute in that yellow blouse, did the Lieutenant find it for you?”

“The point, please, Mr. Malone?” She insisted.

“Long story short, these people are in need of shelter, a home. In return they've agreed to help us find these men who have been stealing women. And they've already given us a peace offering.”

“Which is?” The Lieutenant asked.

“We have a prisoner, tied up in an upstairs closet in the farmhouse nearby, he can give us what we need to get these men. The position of their camp.”

“Are you seriously having a fucking meeting without me?” Grayson burst into the church, along with several of the nuns.

“That was faster than I hoped,” Benny murmured. “Hey, Grayson, I see you're still alive.”

“Fuck you, Benny!” Grayson shouted, storming down the aisle.

As he passed by the young, dark haired man from the new group, the other young man reached out and grabbed Grayson by the back of his shirt, yanking him down hard and holding him there.

“Shut your face, you're in a church, dipshit,” the dark haired man ordered. “Go on, Father.”

Not quite liking this man pushing around Grayson, the Lieutenant stood up and moved to rescue the boy, taking him back to sit at his side.

“Go on, Benny,” he said.

“Well, that's pretty much it. We have a good chance to get back Haley, Laila, maybe any other woman who've been taken by these men and in exchange, the nuns get some company here at the convent. More guns, more people.”

“Less food,” Mena added calmly. When everyone turned to look at her, she stood up almost meekly and made her way to the pulpit, crossing herself quickly before Jesus, before moving to stand beside Benny. “Less space. I certainly hope your friends are willing to work.”

“We won't freeload,” Delgado assured her. “These walls look nice enough to keep us invested in the place.”

“I'm saying,” Mena continued, “we of course will provide shelter and aid, but if we want to winter in contentment, we'll need to bring back more food to supplement our garden and our coop.”

“If one of the new group can help me hunt,” the Lieutenant began, “we can dry some meat for the winter months.”

“Yo!” The dark haired young man said.

“You can't hunt, Kane!” The young man with the glasses who sat beside him said.

“Can you, Auggie? No? Then shut the fuck up.” Kane said.

“Greene and I can help hunt,” Delgado said.

“Well, protein is a good start, but we'll need vegetables, fruit. Our peach tree does what it can, but it won't see us all through the winter.”

“We can find farms that have trees and visit them come harvest time,” the Lieutenant offered. “And any canned food we come across will be brought back to the convent.”

“You sound like you're in, Cajun,” Benny said.

“I have to admit, I'm attracted to the idea of more capable guns around here, but...no offence, I know nothing of these new folk.”

“We know nothing of you either, Lieutenant,” Delgado said.

“Whatever happened to jarhead brotherhood?” Benny asked.

“Well,” Mena broke in. “If we can all manage to get along, then I have no problems with newcomers. But I have a few rules we need to keep to here. This is Holy Ground, my nuns won't be assaulted or have vulgar language or actions taken upon them. I won't expect you all to tend to mass, but you're welcome if you want. Please respect that this is a convent first and foremost.”

“Jesus,” one of the woman from the new group murmured.

“Guess that'll put a stop to your weekend catting, huh Saph?” Kane teased.

“Keep your head straight,” the woman named Saph warned him archly.

Mena waited for them to calm down, before saying, “well, if we can oblige each other's rules, then I don't see why we can't provide sanctuary. We'll celebrate our union tonight with a meet and greet of sorts.”

“A meet and greet?” Delgado asked, his tone was a little more accusatory. These new people were decidedly rougher around the edges than the Lieutenant and the nuns were, it was clear.

Mena sort of shifted nervously under his dark eyed gaze. “Uh...well, I don't...I'm not sure what to call it in the end of days. I'm sorry.”

“No, I – I wasn't being mocking, I'm sorry...we've been in a completely different land than you. It'll take a while to get civilized again.” Delgado said hurriedly, sounding almost embarrassed. “I think a small...thing might be good to mingle our group with yours. Get everyone accustomed to each other.”

Mena nodded. “Alright, then. Now, do any of you need medical treatment or...I see you're pregnant, darling. Do you need prenatal care?”

“I've got my vitamins,” the pregnant woman said. “Thank you.”

“Our people are in good shape, Medicine Man Jack keeps us running,” Delgado said. “We just need some sleep somewhere safe. And food would be wonderful. But don't think we're planning on just sitting around, we will work for that food. We'll chip in on chores.”

“You have a doctor among you?” Mena asked.

“Forensic Pathologist, actually, Jack was in the army as a surgeon too, so he's good at wear and tear fixes. Nothing major, so I hope no one needs brain surgery or open heart.”

“Maybe he wouldn't mind working with our Sisters Mary Monica and Mary Claire, they both have some nursing and hospice training, I'm sure they could benefit from more training.”

The man with the wide brimmed, black hat nodded his agreement. He wouldn't have been the one the Lieutenant would have guessed to be the doctor among the group. Especially with the banjo on his back and the almost Amish fashion he wore on his slender frame.

“Why don't you introduce yourselves, Corporal? So we know who we're bringing in to our flock?”

“Pfft,” Kane – the dark haired young man exhaled.

“We...uh...have pressing matters, another time maybe,” Benny interrupted, motioning to the Lieutenant to join them as he hopped down from the pulpit, heading for the door.

“I will not be blown off, Mr. Malone,” Mena argued, following him down the aisle, everyone, literally the entire two groups, following as well.

In the rush of the crowd, the Lieutenant scooped up Annie, who was still sulking, but allowed herself to be carried instead of getting crushed. He didn't like how fast it was all moving, not that he wasn't used to fast paced, only that he was still a little shaky on his trust with these new people.

Grabbing hold of Dymphna just outside, he eased Annie down and whispered, “keep your eye on these people while we're gone, yeah?”

She nodded.

“And tell the others to keep their weapons on them, they don't have to be menacing, just...cautious.”

Again she nodded. “Will we be okay?”

“I'm eighty percent.”

“Eighty percent yes or no?” She called after him as he hurried to catch up with Benny and Delgado at the gate.

He side eyed a few of Delgado's people, who were milling around awkwardly nearby, as he passed.

Mena joined them just as the Lieutenant did and the four of them stood for a moment at the gate.

“Where are you going?” Benny asked her.

“With you.”

“Not outside the walls, Sister.”

“It's Abbess, please? And I have just as much right to be in on all of this as you, since you decided to start playing fast and loose with our convent supplies. No offence,” she added to Delgado sweetly.

“A little taken, but I get the frustration.” He replied.

“No.” Benny insisted.

“I'm not even going to talk to you anymore,” Mena stated, frustrated.

“Get your weapon, yeah?” The Lieutenant told her. “We'll wait.”

Mena narrowed her eyes at him.

“I promise. We'll wait,” he assured her, grabbing Benny by the hem of his cassock.

As Mena scurried off, Benny yanked his cassock hem back and said, “she can't come. Absolutely not.”

“Why?”

“Because I promised to let this asshole go if he told us everything, so we're going to just let him walk then shoot him dead.”

The Lieutenant glanced in Mena's direction. “Well, shit. We can't leave without her now, she'll kick us all out.”

“Why does she want to come anyways? Have you been letting these nuns loose?” Benny demanded.

“They're free to come and go as they like and...yeah a few of them have been coming with me on hunts and such, I thought it would be best to get them used to the outside world.” The Lieutenant said. “And what the fuck does it matter to you? They need to toughen up.”

Benny nodded angrily, agreeing with him, but clearly not liking it. “Fuck...shit. Yeah they do.”

“What do we do then?” Delgado asked.

The Lieutenant exhaled, he didn't know. This was Benny's fucking mess.

“Okay, we get the information from him, I walk off with him into the woods and strangle the fucker.” Benny said, removing his cassock, possibly to prevent anyone from catching him by the hem again.

“Or,” Delgado added calmly, “we just interrogate him in a room away from her. Shoot him and say he lunged us.”

“That's easier. That'll work.” Benny said, suddenly snapping at the Lieutenant. “Why are you looking at me with a face like a slapped ass?!”

“I'm not,” he argued lightly.

He was, but he wanted to argue a bit. It was an entirely different plan set in motion now. Not a bad plan, just an entirely different one. And, yeah, maybe he hated that it wasn't his plan. Maybe he was a little pissed that it was the fancy man who saved the day for once.

Instead, he turned to Delgado, who was gazing at him with calm, almost thoughtful brown eyes.

“Are your people gonna be okay here on their own?” He asked.

The Corporal nodded. “They're adults.”

“That pregnant one looks young,” the Lieutenant said.

“Hazel, yeah she's our youngest, sixteen. She's a good kid though, quiet and doesn't complain.”

“Who's the father?” The Lieutenant went on with his interrogation dressed up as concern.

Delgado eyed him calmly, before saying, “no one in our group, if that's what you're thinking.”

Mena returned, her giant kitchen knife in hand, empty rucksack on her back. “Ready,” she said.

“Stick close,” the Lieutenant said to her. “Remember what I told you.”

She nodded.

“It's kind of neat, we have three horses stashed in the barn to take back to the convent and everything,” Benny said as they entered a bedroom at the top of the stairs in the farmhouse.

“These men have hor-” The Lieutenant stopped short as a moan came from the closet.

All four of them stopped in their tracks and just stared at the white door.

The moan came again and it wasn't human. Still the four of them just sort of stared in disbelief at the door.

“Hey, dipshit!” Benny finally shouted at the door, kicking it lightly.

The door shuddered in response as the man on the other side threw himself at it, letting loose another familiar moan.

“Shit,” Benny swore, stepping back, circling in a quick pacing motion, before stopping.

Delgado placed his hand on his hip. “He's dead.”

“Fuck!” Benny swore louder.

The door rattled again.

“I knew we should have gotten the information out of him last night!” Benny yelled. “But you wanted to wait!” He pointed at Delgado. “Now that asshole is fucking undead from a stomach wound and we just lost our lead!”

The Corporal blinked at him. “You asked me to offer up my people to fight for you. I wasn't going to do so on blind faith. Sorry, Abbess,” he added kindly to Mena.

She reached out and touched his forearm warmly.

Kicking in the door, slamming it into the uggie on the other side, Benny leapt on top of it and beat it with his fist for a good long time, before pulling out his pistol and shooting him until the clip clicked empty.

Everyone was quiet, their ears ringing in the small room from the shots.

Mena, who had covered her ears at the sight of the gun, lower her hands and looked panicked at the Lieutenant.

“I'm sorry,” Benny apologized, standing up, much calmer than he had been, running a hand through his hair and putting the greasy strands back in place. “That was unfair of me to blame you, Corporal.”

“It's fine,” Delgado said. “But we'd better get moving, those shots will have gotten us some attention.”

“Let's the horses and get the fuck back,” Benny said softly, almost as though he were ashamed of himself or the situation.

The Lieutenant actually felt bad for the man. He was just after these men because they posed a threat to the survivors of the area, namely his nuns, but Benny had lost someone to them. Benny didn't seem the type to make honest-to-god connections with people, so it seemed like when he did, he was attached for life.

He clapped Benny on the back as they left the room, trying to comfort the poor man.

Benny was quiet, but didn't shove his comforting gesture away, just sort of slumped his way down the hall.

“Ever been on a horse, Abbess?” Delgado asked as they saddled the creatures as quickly as they could.

Mena shook her head. “No.”

“Me neither,” he said. “Guess we'll both learn something new today.”

“Cajun?” Benny asked. “You ride?”

“Never.”

“Fucking Cajuns,” Benny replied, swinging up onto his horse easily. “Just like riding a bike.”

“These bikes bite, don't they?” The Lieutenant asked, eyeing his horse warily.

Benny's horse whinnied and side stepped in agitation at the new, unfamiliar rider and Benny almost fell off.

Laughing, the Lieutenant attempted to copy Benny's movements up and into the saddle, adjusting himself down below to a comfortable position, before turning to offer a hand to Mena.

She was already being hefted onto Delgado's horse by the Corporal, sitting in front of him, holding the horn nervously. So he instead pulled Marie off his shoulder and holstered her into the fancy rifle holster attached to the saddlebag.

“Alright, little kick to get them going,” Benny instructed. “Pull this way to go this way, pull this way to go that way, pull both back to stop. If your horse gets spooked, it's probably because of a snake or the undead, hold on like hell and they'll get you away to safety, but they may buck and if that happens? Eight seconds.” He added with a grin at his own joke. “Yup!” He nudged his horse into a trot, out of the barn.

“Fucking Texian,” the Lieutenant cursed, nudging his own horse to follow.

“You know I used to be better at this,” Benny murmured as they rode, keeping to the woods, not deep enough to wear the horses out with rough terrain, but deep enough to avoid the living.

“Riding?” The Lieutenant asked.

“No, tactics. You retire from the army, you get fucking twenty pounds fatter, you sit at home, you watch daytime television, your mind rots and then this happens and you fucking fail at the only thing you were ever good at.”

“We all grow older, Mr. Malone,” Mena said softly. “You did what you could.”

Benny was sullen on his beautiful black and white paint.

“I don't know you well, Father,” Delgado said. “But...I wouldn't have done anything different from what you did.”

“Thanks strange marine,” Benny said almost sarcastically.

“Hey, Texian,” the Lieutenant offered, hoping to cheer up the poor little fancy man. “You got yourself a horse and...isn't that all a cowboy needs?”

“Fuck you, Cajun,” Benny murmured. It was without feeling and quite unlike him. “I'm out of bullets, I'm out of ideas. I don't know. Maybe it's time to die.”

It was a joke, but a dark one and no one else was laughing.

“How about one yeehaw while you're on that horse?” The Lieutenant kept pressing, knowing he was getting somewhere with the teasing.

Benny's eyes shone a little in amusement, though he still looked disappointed.

“Just a soft one? For me?” The Lieutenant went on.

“I'll give you a fucking yeehaw,” Benny grumbled. Turning to Mena, he said, “I have to admit, Abbess, I'm shocked at you. I thought you'd jump up my ass and stay there about that man back there.”

“About how you allowed him to die?” She inquired archly.

“So you are mad?” Benny asked with a small, almost proud smile.

“Mr. Malone,” she began in that way that the Lieutenant knew was her gearing up to scold. Both Benny and the Lieutenant also geared up, bracing for the blow, and even though he was new to their dynamic, even Delgado seemed to steel himself in preparation.

But she didn't follow it up with anything.

Abbess of the Veil of Tears of the Sacred Virgin Convent, Mother Mena, petite and polite, just sat on the horse in front of Delgado and gazed long and hard at the horizon before them.

The Lieutenant was peering at her from his own horse, and Benny dropped over his own saddle horn to peer past the Lieutenant to join in on the staring.

Both men exchanged a curious look at each other, before Benny prodded, “Abbess?”

“There's so much death and dying in this new land,” she began softly, all fire gone from her tone. “I can't bring myself to care much.”

There was a second, only a beat really, before Benny said, “well, now, that sounds like the tone of someone who's defeated!” His loud, overly friendly, almost mocking voice rang off of the surrounding hills and hit back at them hard. It was too plastic, too fake. Just like the Lieutenant, Benny didn't like to hear Mena sound so...apathetic and it must have chased his own defeated attitude off.

Yelling, scolding, even a sermon, was better than this apathy from Mena.

“Dead,” Delgado warned, just as his horse nickered uncomfortably, prancing closer to the Lieutenant's.

The smell was in the air, something rotten, something that wasn't just an old stump in the woods.

Slipping down from his horse, the Lieutenant tossed his reins at Benny and said, “get the others back to the convent. We need to protect the horses.”

Mena struggled against Delgado's arms, and hopped down too to join him.

He didn't have time to tell her to get back on the horse, just pulled her behind him.

She welded her knife though and while she obeyed his wordless order to get behind him, she peeked out from around him to keep an eye on the rapidly approaching dead.

Benny and Delgado were long gone and it was fine, the Lieutenant was used to this new land, but he didn't care for the fact that Mena had to hop down with him. She would be one distraction he didn't need.

But she was here and today seemed as good a day as any for her to learn the hard way about the dead.

Kicking the first one to reach them square in the chest, he sent it back into the others hard, the one at the back collapsing.

Among the snarls and almost hisses of the dead, he heard Mena gasp and chanced only a quick glance over his shoulder, to find the grass rustling to their right as well. More dead.

“Run,” he commanded her, killing one of the uggies that lunged at them with his own knife, before shoving her hard in the direction the grass wasn't rustling in.

She screamed as another of the dead came out of the grass, toppling her and sending them both into the grass to disappear.

With no option, as the uggies were at his heels, he swept into the area the two had tumbled and stomped hard on the uggie's head as it struggled to get to its feet beside Mena who was laying on the ground.

She leapt up and joined him in running towards the woods, but not before punching at one of the dead that had caught up with them. It sent it off course, but didn't topple it. They were so close to the trees, but he knew they wouldn't make it, the dead were already grasping at the backs of their shirts. Grabbing Mena by the upper arm hard, he shoved her ahead of him and stopped, allowing the five dead to topple him, letting his feast be the distraction she would need to escape.

He kicked and punched hard at the group, stuffing his marine issued boot into the mouth of one that was at his legs, preventing it from biting, trying to avoid being bitten by the others using his knife to block any mouth that was thrown at him. It was a battle he was losing fast, there were too many. One of the uggies dropped to the ground heavily beside him, then rapid gunfire and the rest were dropping fast. Scrambling back and away from the pile of dead, he looked himself over for a bite, the action happening too fast for him to notice anything.

Mena was at his side, helping him up, her knife black with the dead's blood.

“Come on,” she urged him, yanking him towards the woods.

Just inside the tree line Delgado had stationed himself up in a tree and was holding his hand down to them to help them up into the old oak. He was so fucking welcome into the group at that moment, hand held down to them, rifle in his other.

Mena first, the Lieutenant ensured that, pushing her up, before following.

“Did they get you?” Delgado asked.

Still looking over his arms, in the safety of the tree as more dead emerged from the grass to gather below, he shook his head. “I don't think so.” He checked and rechecked for a bite, hands shaking. It was close, too close. He had been so damned careful, but that was...it was too close.

“You're lucky you were heading for me,” Delgado murmured, between taking shots at the uggies. “You would have been dead.”

“Thanks,” the Lieutenant breathed. He assumed the man had jumped off his horse as well, sending Benny on to the convent. And he was fucking grateful for the other marine.

Sitting on a branch above them, Mena was quiet.

Reaching up, the Lieutenant tweaked at her booted foot, trying to put her at ease, comforting her the best he could.

“You okay?” He asked her between shots.

She nodded, wide eyes on the dead below them.

“It's okay,” he said. “There can't be that many, Delgado has the ammo to put them all down.” Unless there's more out there and they're all coming to the sound of the shots, he thought, but kept that to himself. It was only then that he realized he didn't have Marie on his back and remembered putting her on the fucking horse in the rifle holster.

Great place for her, you fucking couyon.

There was only five or so left, so he turned to Mena.

“Once these uggies are put down, we have to climb down and run like hell,” he ordered, feeling like the CO he was once more. “There could be more headed this way, we stay close together, we don't stop running until we hit the convent or some kind of shelter. Do you understand?”

She nodded.

“Yes?” He urged needing an auditory agreement that she understood his orders.

“Yes.”

Three more left and the Lieutenant tried hard to ignore the way his branch was cracking under his weight, only three more. It gave out at two left and despite him trying to grab another branch, he fell straight down with the branch, collapsing on one of the uggies below hard. So hard he heard the poor uggies ribs crunch. Delgado shot the last one as he stabbed the poor dead woman in the eye and put her out of her misery, before getting to his feet shakily. He was getting too old to fall out of fucking trees that was for damned sure, but he was grateful for the uggie that broke his fall.

Jumping down, Delgado gave them cover as the Lieutenant reached up and helped Mena down. Then the three of them ran as a unit, into the woods, away from the tree and the tall grass.

Keeping Mena in front of them always, the Lieutenant found Delgado keeping pace with her, hand holding her upper arm. The man had flawlessly moved into the proper position for protecting a civilian from gunfire and for a moment the Lieutenant was a marine again. It was nice to have that trained companion who knew how protocols worked.

They moved through the woods as fast and as carefully as they could, before they stumbled into the clearing where the lagoon for the convent was. They weren't far, but coming up the ass end.

At the sight of the wall, the Lieutenant actually exhaled the breath he had been holding and with Delgado's help, they boosted Mena up onto the wall first, before the Lieutenant stooped down for the other man.

Once all three were on the wall, they sat down and just took a moment.

He looked himself over once more, paranoid a little now that he had been bitten, but he saw nothing but scratches from the branches of the tree and a few dings from the fall. His ankle hurt a bit, but he would be back to one hundred percent in a few days.

“Any battle you can walk away from, huh?” He asked Delgado.

The other marine looked at him with his serious, dark eyes, before a small, almost bashful, dimpled smile spread over his face.

Giving one last, dramatic exhale, the Lieutenant hopped gingerly down from the wall and held his arms out for Mena, but again, Delgado had beaten him to her, easing her down, his hands holding hers, before he hopped down himself.

“You alright?” The Lieutenant asked Mena as they walked around the church.

She nodded, pale and drawn, but seemingly alright.

Grasping hold of his hand before they could emerge from the five foot space between the church and the east wall, she pulled him back into the shadows and peered up at him sombrely.

“Thank you,” she said sincerely, brown eyes so wide and so sweet as they gazed up at him. They were so dark and eternal in the shadows of the church that he swore he could see stars sparkling in them. “I'll never forget how you were prepared to die for me.”

Delgado, sensing he wasn't supposed to be there, just sort of slunk off, leaving them alone.

The Lieutenant didn't know why she was thanking him. He never understood the gratitude. He was trained to save lives, to protect, it wasn't just killing and war, though those were the unsavoury aspects of it. He was a marine, he joined to save lives. His life didn't matter, he wasn't a family man, he didn't have any reason to be alive other than protecting this convent and its people.

Mena, he supposed, more than any other. She was more important around here than him. She had nuns that needed her leadership.

Not good with serious talk, with real emotions, he chucked her playfully on the chin and said, “you did good out there, kid.”

“Lieutenant,” she began, but he was already heading out from behind the church.

Benny came up to them, smiling at first, before calming himself and saying, “gotta play hero, huh? That's gonna get you killed someday.”

“It was almost this day,” Mena stated.

“How's my horse, fancy man?” The Lieutenant inquired with a grin.

As they rounded the church, standing in front, heading for the gate, the Lieutenant noticed Delgado standing with his people in a tight circle, the survivors from his group having hardly moved from where they had been left.

Making a straight line for the new group, the Lieutenant found some nuns also heading in that direction, knowing they would get filled in there.

“So are we being asked to leave then?” One of Delgado's people asked.

“No,” Mena answered for the marine. “We aren't making anyone go anywhere. We still have the agreement than you'd help us in dealing with these men and to be honest I would never turn away anyone who needed shelter and safety here. I just ask that you pitch in with chores. Have you been offered tea or water?” She asked.

They nodded.

“Have you been fed?”

They shook their heads.

Mena frowned, but only offered the nuns with them a small, withering glare, before saying, “well, then let's go inside the cloister and get you something to eat. We can have an early lunch.”

“I'll have to skip hunting today,” the Lieutenant said. “Until the area is calmed down, somewhat. All the shooting and commotion probably scared away the game anyways.”

“Good,” she said. “You can work on digging us another privy hole.”

“Latrine duty, huh?” He asked with a small grin. “For saving your life?”

“For being reckless,” she replied coolly.

He nodded, properly stripped down. “Alright.”

“I can help with that,” Delgado said. “Jack, Billy? Let's get you working with the nursing nuns.”

“That would be Sisters Mary Monica and Mary Claire, they're in that building over there. It's the infirmary, but first your people eat.”

As Mena led the new people away, the Lieutenant watched their retreating backs, the gears in his mind already turning.

“Why's she's pissed at you?” Benny asked, coming to stand with him.

“I don't know,” he lied.

“Well, enjoy the doghouse, dipshit,” the shorter man scoffed, heading after the others.

“Why are you mad now?” He called out after him.

Benny turned in his tracks, walking backwards. “Because you didn't need to jump down from your fucking horse. We could have outrun the dead. You have a hero complex or a death wish. And you need to fix your shit!”

“So what? You wanted us to run the horses here and lead the dead to our door? Was that your plan?”

Benny turned around and scowled darkly, folding his arms. “Is this about me bringing these people here?”

“Look,” the Lieutenant began diplomatically. “We both fucked up today. Let's call it a scratch match.”

“We need to get our shit together,” Benny agreed.

Exhaling a sigh, the Lieutenant knew Benny might be right.

#graveyard dirt & salt series #novel #sorry it took me so long to update #thought no one was reading this anymore #shout out to #gothamsgaygirlgang

4 notes · View notes

graveyarddirtseries · 3 years

Text

Graveyard Dirt & Salt

Chapter Eight: Benny II

But it felt like a Sunday, standing in the living room of some poor fucking family, staring at the velvet Elvis painting on the wall of their double wide, an expired can of sparkling water in his hand, the sling blade he had found and was using in his other.

As always please reblog to support me. I hate to beg, but even just a reblog to help out a creator would be appreciated. And if you can, please help out an independent author over on my ko-fi.

It had been five days now.

Five days of aimless wandering, of scratching by on vending machine snacks and whatever water he could scrounge out of emergency stashes and kitchens all across the Georgian countryside.

But Benny worked better alone. He didn't have that marine set on helping out every fucking stray he found, he didn't have the incessant yap yap yap of Grayson in his ear and he wasn't bound by the nuns and their fucking idea of charity.

It felt like a Sunday, but he wasn't entirely certain what day of the week it was anymore. They all kind of blurred together.

Fuck he missed Vegas.

In borrowed shoes he had scuffed to look war torn and ragged, and a cassock that was getting heavier and hotter by the hour, he stood for what felt like an eternity staring at Elvis in the smothering Georgian heat.

His plan was to wander until he sniffed at a clue, until he ran across some sign of life in the area surrounding the convent and the town, but it was beginning to grow tedious and he was in the early stages of changing his plans.

With ears always tuned to the snaps and pops of distant gunshots, Benny was immediately put on his guard when he heard the very familiar sounds of gunfire and turned away from Elvis curiously.

Shots meant someone with the ability to still hold a weapon and pull the trigger, shots meant something living in the woods behind the double wide.

Normally he didn't hesitate, he jumped right in and dealt with shit, but this was delicate. Friend or foe? He had to know exactly who was behind the gun that was still snapping and popping somewhere in the verdant woods.

Easing his way through the trees and shrubs, trying to stay behind trees enough to avoid stray bullets since he didn’t know which direction the shooting was aimed at, he approached the source of the sound carefully. Even if this was someone friendly, this kind of noise would wake the entire neighbourhood of ghouls and goblins and they would come running.

Whoever was shooting was either doing it out of complete fear and over-killing whatever they were shooting at, or it was a whole mess of people in a heated gunfight because the shots were too close together to be a sensible kill.

At the faint sounds of shouting, Benny slowed his approach and eased up behind a natural earth embankment, hoping to hell he wasn't going to get picked off by a stray shot as he slowly peeked up and over the hill.

At first he didn't see anything, but the shots were louder and the shouting was more furious. Someone commanded the shooters with the skill and tone of a military man, but there was still no distinct words or sight of who was shooting.

Taking a chance, Benny crested the hill and scrambled down to nestle behind a thick oak tree at the base.

“Get her untied, get that rope off her!” Someone shouted as Benny moved closer to the source of the gunshots. “Don't let them get away! Shoot to kill!”

Leaves to Benny's ten were crunched underfoot as someone finally emerged from the thick woods, a younger man with a rifle in his hand, aimed at someone to Benny's two.

“You better let her go or I swear I'll fucking blow your nose through the back of your mullet-head, you Confederate flag flying fuck!” The young man shouted roughly, before he shot the rifle.

Somewhere to Benny's two o'clock a fucking horse whinnied and Benny, desperate to see what the hell was going on, chanced darting out from his tree, skittering into a pile of leaves behind another, burying himself quickly and as quietly as he could.

Peering around the trunk, he finally spied more people, taking cover behind trees of their own, as five men on horseback tried to hold their ground on a narrow farmhouse lane.

Man after man on horseback were picked off by unseen riflemen somewhere in the woods around them, while one of the men dropped a woman roughly off the back of his horse, her hands and legs bound.

From out of the woods a man strode and he stood, holding his ground with his rifle, with the confidence of someone who was trained to hold a rifle as he shouted to the last three men. “Put her down! Put her down now!”

One of the men who had been shot from the horse was trying to get back on his feet, but was shot dead by someone unseen in the woods behind the commanding man.

With fair warning and no surrendering of the second woman in sight, the man standing in the open fired, taking out one of the other men still on horseback as he did so, it was like a silent command had been ordered and from out of the woods behind him more people opened fire and the last of the men on horseback was downed, their horses darting into the woods.

“Shit,” the young man to Benny's ten swore. “Hazel's still on that fucking horse!”

“I'm on it!” A young black man who appeared from behind the trained man said as he darted out and after the horses.

Benny was panting from the adrenaline rush and excitement of the hunt. Those men on horseback, they were the ones he wanted. He felt it.

Before him on the lane, one of them was struggling to get to his feet, still alive, without his horse he had no escape and that young man was approaching him with intent to put him down.

There was no hesitation this time, Benny was on his feet, running into most certain death, throwing himself between the man on the ground and the young, dark haired man with the cold eyes and the hard sneer on his face.

“Wait!” He shouted, startling everyone who was now gathering around them on the lane. Kicking a handgun out of the injured man's reach, Benny continued to protect him bodily.

“Who the fuck are you?” The young man snapped in a tone that said he wouldn't hesitate to kill Benny then and there. And he would have, if the commanding man, the one in the military camo, hadn’t stepped in and pushed his rifle down.

“Are you with these men?” The military man asked, dark brown eyes scanning him warily.

Benny shook his head, finally remembering he was a priest in a cassock and everything. “No.” He said, knowing that maybe the truth would work for him in this moment. Since it was apparent they had a common enemy, one that almost go away with the women of this group. “But I heard the gunfire from nearby and I've heard of these men...they take women.”

“And?” The young man demanded. He looked maybe early to mid twenties, with his dark hair buzzed short on the sides, long on top, greasy and shoved back out of his eyes. His accent smacked of someplace more Northerly, possibly Boston or Philly.

Stepping on the wounded man's back hard to keep him down, Benny ground the man into the dirt road and said, “I've been looking for them.”

“A priest is hunting these men down?” The military man asked skeptically.

“They took some of my nuns,” he lied. “I want them back safely.”

“What makes you think they didn't just rape and dump them in a ditch?” The young man asked, he had backed away now and was lighting a cigarette, his rifle on his back.

“No,” Benny said. “These men took them, like they've taken others.”

The military man stood, hand moving to his hip, rifle held loosely in his other hand.

“Look,” Benny went on. “The abominations will be coming to the sound of all that gunfire. If I heard you, they did too. Why don't you go on and leave me with this one? I don't want trouble, I just want him to question.”

From behind the man a black woman came and stood, she too looked like military, her hair cut short. Another black woman stood, comforting the woman who had been pushed from the back of the horse, a bruise and battered looking Asian woman. All of them stared, gawped almost at Benny.

He knew he would have been dead if it wasn't for the dog collar, and he was so fucking glad for it.

“I don't want to fight or any trouble,” Benny pressed urgently. He wanted to get this man and get the fuck out of the area before the dead came in swarms. “But time is not on our side here.”

“You alone out here?” The military man asked.

“Just me, I was tracking these men, hoping to find where they're holed up.” He said. “I just want this one to question him.”

“You gonna torture some information out of him, Father?” The man asked.

Benny was planning on doing just that thing, but he wasn't about to admit that dressed as a priest. “No,” he said, sounding disgusted. “I just want to ask him to confess, to tell me under God who took the nuns and where.”

Still no one said anything, the military man just sort of eyed Benny suspiciously, trying to decide if it was okay to just shoot the priest asking for one of their enemies to be given to him.

“Are you army? Marine, maybe?” Benny asked of the man, hoping to quickly make a connection to him before the fucking dead came upon them.

“Marine,” the man said.

Benny felt a flicker of hope flare up inside him and asked, “were you stationed around here? HQ? Do you know a Vancoughnett? A Lieutenant?”

This warmed the man's cold gaze a little and he relaxed a little. “Not well, but I think I remember a Lieutenant Vancoughnett. Cajun, wasn't he? Speaks kind of funny?”

Benny nodded. “Yeah, he's looking after my nuns. Helping us out.”

This earned him a blink from the man, seems he wasn’t the emotional sort. “There's marines still alive out there?”

“Yeah.”

“Another marine,” the marine murmured.

Benny smiled. “Yeah.”

“Delgado, Corporal,” the man said, shouldering his rifle now, at ease a little at the mention of their common companion.

“Corporal,” Benny greeted. “I'm Father Benjamin Malone. Let's take this elsewhere, huh? I can maybe help you and yours out, if you'd be willing to help me out and give me this prisoner.” As Benny said this, the young black man exited the woods, a young pregnant woman with him, his hands holding the reins of three of the five horses.

“I found some horses,” the man announced proudly, beaming. “And Hazel's okay.” His grin died at the sight of Benny and he shifted in closer to his people.

“Horses, huh?” Delgado asked. “Alright, let's get out of the area, find shelter with our new horses and a priest.”

As they started to walk off, their prisoner in the merciless hands of the young man with the dark hair, Benny felt himself jerked back a little firmly and Delgado whispered to him, “I don't like to threaten priests, but behave yourself around my people, okay?”

Benny nodded.

“I will shoot you, no hesitation.” Delgado finished. “And Greene back there? She's our crackshot, can't miss.”

Benny glanced behind them to where the black woman with the short hair strode, rifle in hand, eyes on him warily.

They walked on for a ways, before he asked, “these men take woman, hm?”

“Yeah. We not only lost some nuns, but the Lieutenant and I ran across this young boy, tied up, said some men took his sister too, left him for dead,” Benny replied.

Delgado sighed lightly “Son of a bitch. We had a hard time enough getting out of Atlanta, now we're facing off against the backwoods folk.”

“Well, Corporal,” Benny said. “The wicked have always lived among us, but we had checks and balances for bad behaviour. This societal collapse is only bringing them more freedom.”

Glancing to his left where the angry young man walked, Benny found him exhaling his smoke right in his face almost like he was spitting on him.

They managed to hole up in a farmhouse, far enough from the noise to avoid the large swarms of the dead, but Benny was still on edge. The gunshots were enough that he was worried they would be knee deep in the dead wherever they went now.

Sheltering their pilfered horses in an old barn, Benny helped Delgado's people, all while keeping an eye on the prisoner. He just needed fifteen, twenty minutes alone with the asshole.

“Rifle rounds and some water, but nothing much,” the young black man murmured as he went through the saddlebags.

“I'm interested in a group that can manage to keep horses alive in the middle of the fucking end of days,” the black woman with the long braids piled high on her head replied. “One that takes women?” She turned to Benny, the question aimed at him.

He blinked at her, but said nothing.

“You a real priest?” The young man asked.

“I don't dress like this to pick up women,” Benny teased. He was going to try for cool priest, hoping it might make him less hated than stuffy priest.

“I'm Auggie,” the young man said. “Nice to meet you, Father.”

“Malone, you can call me Benny.”

“Father Benny,” Auggie said.

He'd take it.

“And you?” Benny asked the woman.

“Saph,” she said.

“And that's short for...?”

“None of ya,” she replied coolly.

Delgado appeared suddenly at the doorway into the barn. “The house is secured for the night. What'd you find on the horses?”

“Nothing much,” Auggie said.

“I don't want to turn them loose,” Delgado went on with a sigh. “But I can't let them go, they might be useful.”

“More of a pain in the ass, if you ask me,” Saph said.

Benny, always sensing opportunity, said, “maybe my people could trade with yours for them? We have a place for them and might find a use.”

“We can talk trade after we rest up and regroup,” Delgado said, not at all sounding opposed. “You want answers from our prisoner, I want to trade for that too.”

“Deal,” Benny said.

“How are Hazel and Beverly?” Saph asked.

Delgado shrugged. “They were almost snatched from our camp, I don't think they're going to be resting well for a while.”

Still on the precipice of opportunity, Benny once more interjected, “are you on the move? Don't have a place to hole up?”

“Doesn't make sense to settle,” Delgado murmured, as they secured the barn doors, shoving things in front of them to prevent the dead from pressing into them in force to get them open. “We haven't settled since we broke free from the city.”

“Are you settled, Father?” Auggie asked.

Benny nodded slowly, he didn't want to give too much away, but he was hoping a tentative truce could be formed between the two groups, he wasn't really diplomatic, that wasn't his realm, but he could be sneaky. “Yes, we're very safe where we are.”

“Maybe we should stick a rifle up your ass and get you to confess,” the gruff young man said as they passed him by as he stood on the front porch of the farmhouse. “Take your safe location for our own.”

“Kane,” Delgado warned the young man. “We aren't looking for trouble with more than one group right now.”

Behind him Benny heard Saph slap Kane hard upside the head and while the young man snarled harshly at her, there wasn't further fighting.

Entering the house, he found the rest of Delgado's people in the living room, packing it full, surrounding the prisoner, who was bleeding out from his gut wound in the middle of the floor. Someone had given him a pillow, but there looked to be no medical attention given, though a fellow in a black, wide brimmed hat was trying to get the man to drink some water, kneeling by his head.

In all, Benny counted nine from Delgado's group.

“What do we do with you?” Delgado asked the man, standing over him.

The man said nothing. Benny didn't expect him to sing. If this man was really a part of a group that had the ability to steal away women in the night, to leave young boys strung up on flagpoles for fun instead of just shooting him, if this group had horses, they were big and they were formed from loyalty to something that made them bold. Possibly run on fear and force.

Sticking his boot against the man's wound, Delgado applied light pressure, enough to make the man squeal.

“I like my prisoners to be polite and answer my questions, okay?” Delgado asked in his soft, rasping whisper.

Still the man was quiet.

“You taking women around these parts?” Delgado pressed, literally, his entire boot into the man's gut, right over the seeping wound. “You tried to snatch a couple of women from our group, so I'm inclined to believe what the good Father there is saying about you.”

“Suck my dick,” the man ground out from between his clenched teeth.

Delgado stood up straight and for a moment seemed to consider the man before him, before turning to Saph and saying, “get Kane in here.”

Benny, easing down on the sofa behind the group, with a clear view of the injured man, sighed. He didn't know how long he had to play nice before he could get at the man, but he was a patient man when it mattered.

The young man from outside entered the room, following Saph who stood to the side looking a little irritated by the situation.

“Kane,” Delgado said in his soft rasp, it was the kind of voice that was so deep and so soothing that it forced one to lean in closer to hear him, it was either a clever ploy on Delgado's part or unintentional brilliance. “This man wants me to suck his dick. What do you make of that?”

“My old man would say smear the queer, but...I'm more progressive,” Kane said simply, handing his rifle over to one of the nearby group members. “And a lot nicer.”

“Kane was Boston Lightweight Intercity Champion four times over,” Delgado explained to the man at his feet.

“Do you think this scares me?” The man scoffed. “I've seen and done worse.”

“You didn't let me finish,” Delgado went on calmly. “Kane was Lightweight Intercity Champion, until his right hook killed a man in a barfight. They said Kane hit him so hard his brain detached from his spinal cord.”

Even as he said this, Benny was eyeing the young man, his hands were all bloody and battered, he looked like he was born swinging and never stopped. Was he punching the fucking dead to re-death? Impressive if true.

“So. Let's begin again,” Delgado went on. “I'm going to ask a question and I want you to answer for me, okay? Let's try not to see what happens when you give me smart mouthed answers. Okay?”

“Fuck. You.” The man stated. “This pipsqueak-”

Kane let fly a left jab, down at the man's face.

From where he was sitting, even Benny heard the crunch of bone cracking. The man in the black hat led some of the others into another room in panic, while Saph, Auggie, Benny and Greene remained to watch Delgado and Kane interrogate the man.

Spitting out blood that was pouring into his mouth from his broken nose, the injured man panted, but remained quiet otherwise.

“Okay, now that you've got that out of your system. Is your group taking women?” Delgado asked.

The man looked like he was going to say something smart-assed, but his eyes flicked to Kane who was lighting up another smoke. “Yeah,” he conceded.

Benny leaned forward, practically salivating. This was the man he needed to get time with alone and it was all the more tantalizing.

“Why?” Delgado inquired.

“We just got orders.”

“From who?”

“I dunno.”

“You don't know?”

Kane raised his fist, driving the man into a mild panic. “I don't know! Honest! We don't get to go down into the tunnels.”

“Tunnels?”

The man was quiet, sullen, clearly he'd said too much.

“Okay. Did you take Father Malone's nuns?” Delgado demanded.

“I don't know nothing about no nuns. Maybe. I don't know.”

“How many of you are there?”

“Hundreds maybe. I don't know.”

“You seem to not know much, considering you're willing to die for these people.” Auggie broke in softly.

The man peered at him archly. “So? They keep us fed and keep bullets in our guns. We don't have no problem with the dead.”

“Where do you hole up?” Benny asked, so eager to get to that important question that he forgot he was just supposed to be an observer.

The man spit more blood, but said nothing.

Kane let fly another solid punch, it connected with the man's eye with another crunch.

“Fuck you!” The man growled in pain.

“Fuck you,” Kane replied calmly.

“Where is your group's settlement?” Delgado asked.

“Fuck you,” the man spat. “I'm dead anyways, I'm not going to go out like a bitch.”

“May I, Corporal?” Benny interjected before Kane could kill the man.

Delgado turned to him curiously, eyebrows raised.

“I might not be able to hit hard or...but I would like to offer up an ear for confession, should the man want.” Benny said.

“God is dead, priest, it's just us now.” The man snarled.

“May I suggest something then, my son?” Benny inquired. “You're dying, that is very evident. But...well, it's a stomach wound. Now, I was Chaplin back in the army, long ago and I seemed to recall hearing that gut wounds can be lasting and you'll be in agony for hours, maybe days.”

The man was quiet, but his good eye was alert.

“I came across a boy, a young boy no older than fourteen and he claims your people had left him tied up to a flagpole to die. I can't imagine under God's own sky, how awful that would be. I'm just grateful that your people didn't leave him wounded up there.”

He felt eyes on him, more than just the injured man's and he may have overstepped, but he was doing his fucking best.

“I couldn't imagine what it would be like, tied to a flagpole for days, in the kind of pain you're in now. Even death wouldn't free you, because you'd turn into one of the abominations. Your corpse just twisting and writhing, dangling like an animal in a trap.” Benny moved from the couch to kneel beside the man. “If you help us, show us the mercy we seek, I'm certain mercy will be heaped upon your brow. We can end your suffering and...I will pray for your soul's safe passage.”

“I don't want mercy,” the man finally said after soaking it all in. “I want life. Let me go and I'll leave the state, I won't be a problem.”

Benny leaned back on his heels and looked up at Delgado.

“We can't do that,” Delgado said. “You know we can't.”

“You can. If you promise to let me go, I'll tell you everything.”

“He's dead anyways,” Kane murmured. “I say let's gouge out his fucking eyes and send him packing. Good fucking luck, prick.”

“Calm down, Goneril,” Auggie said simply.

“What'd you fucking call me?” Kane snarled, suddenly ready to fight the other young man. He was only stopped from his new task of beating on Auggie, by Delgado, who pushed him back, a hand on Kane's face.

“Everything?” Benny asked.

The injured man nodded.

If it was just Benny, he'd take the deal and hunt the fucker down while he was getting away and just straight up murder his ass. But he was a priest as far as Delgado's people knew and he was technically just using their prisoner for information. He figured he should play nice this time.

So he stood up and approached Delgado for a tete-a-tete.

“What do you think?” He asked the marine.

The man considered it for a second, before saying, “we get the information, then kill him anyways.”

Benny almost grinned, but he had to play the priest and it fucking sucked.

“We can't murder a child of God if he's repentant.”

“Is he though?” Delgado asked.

Benny glanced over his shoulder at the man who held all the answers he needed to get Annie back to her mother so he could go back to being an asshole who didn't care about anyone. He weighed his options.

One, he didn't want that man to just go off, free as a bird. Knowing there were people after his group now. Two, he really needed the information. Three, he was beginning to think Delgado's people weren't as expendable as he previously thought. If they went after this group, if there was as many as the man said, if he was being honest, then the convent could use more hands and Delgado had a good sized group of what looked like pretty decent survivors.

“Let me talk to you alone,” Benny said to Delgado.

The marine nodded and motioned them into a nearby mudroom, closing the door.

“Real talk?” Benny began tentatively. He could either blow this or he could fix pretty much everything. And who didn't like a fucking hero?

“Better be 'real talk', Father,” Delgado said. “Because in my experience gringos like you don't know the meaning of real talk.”

“I come from a convent,” Benny began slowly, deciding as he went how much information to share. He wanted to trust Delgado, but then again, you couldn't trust anyone. That being said, Delgado's people – aside from Kane, gave him no reason to worry. Not like these men who took women.

“I thought nuns came from convents,” Delgado murmured.

“I mean, my people are holed up in a convent nearby.”

The marine nodded. “That would explain the nuns, I guess.”

“I'm not a priest,” Benny said simply, deciding to see how the bombs would fall on that one.

Delgado nodded. “I'm not shocked. You weren't up my ass about about beating that man in there.”

“We haven't lost nuns, but I did lose my travelling partner to this group. When I took up with these nuns, I decided we needed to take this group down. I dressed like a priest hoping it would get me in the door if they came across me.”

“It worked on us, I would have shot your ass without hesitation if you had come through those woods without the collar. Real talk, huh?”

Benny nodded.

“Okay, so what made you confess?” Delgado asked.

“Because I don't really want this fucking asshole to walk. I say we take the deal, and let him go, only far enough to shoot him.”

“No, there's something else. You need something else.”

“Here I thought my poker face was flawless,” Benny teased.

“What is it?”

“We need manpower. Bodies behind rifles if we want to take this group down.”

Delgado sighed heavily and rubbed his hand over his face. “Fuck, man.”

“Look, you're a marine, a do-gooder. You know how dangerous this group can be if it keeps growing and growing. We have to nip it in the bud if we want to only have to worry about the fucking dead.”

“No, listen,” Delgado said. “You have to give us something better than peace in the valley. If you want my people to fight and die for your cause, you need to offer us the world.”

Benny's mind was already sorting through the logistics of what he was prepared to offer, so he didn't hesitate when he said, “I can give them protection. A safe place to settle down. You can stop running.”

Delgado was quiet. His face was hard to read, but his brown eyes said a lot. He was considering it. He cared for his people. He'd get along well with the other sappy marine.

“Our convent has eight foot high stone walls, nothing is getting in. We are well fortified and getting better armed, we have a well with fresh water, a garden, hell a chicken coop. You help us, we can shelter your people where they'll be safe. The only thing is the value of the property is depreciating because of a group of pricks who are stealing women and leaving boys to hang from flagpoles.”

Delgado eyed the floor at his boots for a moment, before saying, “I can't make this decision without asking my people.”

“Okay, then ask.”

Delgado gave him one last, narrow eyed look. “If you fuck us on this-”

“I'm not. The nuns wouldn't let me fuck you anyways,” he added with a small grin. “Besides in my old age I would only be able to get through the first two or three of you.”

Delgado wasn’t big on laughing, Benny was fast learning, as the man nodded and turned around to face the door.

They stepped back into the living room, Delgado saying, “Auggie, Kane, watch the prisoner. Everyone else in the kitchen now, please.”

Benny took up a spot by the back door, in case things didn't work as planned, he had an escape into the night, while around the small kitchen Delgado's remaining group gathered.

Pregnant girl, Asian lady, black woman with braids – Saph as Benny recalled, black female marine – Greene, he was sure her name was, the man with the black hat and the older black man with the cloth cap and guitar strapped to his back. All of them wide eyed and curious.

“We have an offer on the table,” Delgado began slowly. “A chance to stop running, for safety behind a wall, food, clean water. I know we're all tired, we've all lost people. When I first came across you all in Atlanta, you had people with you. Loved ones. And I'm sorry I couldn't protect them, but I want to see you all flourish and survive. We've all bled and bruised ourselves to get here.”

“What's the catch?” Saph asked.

“Mr. Malone here,” Delgado said, emphasizing 'mister' like he meant it. “Wants us to help him take down this group that tried to steal some of you today from camp.”

“That man said there could be hundreds of them,” Saph argued.

Delgado nodded. “Yeah. But listen, we can do this carefully, smart. And we can plan it out from behind the safety of an eight foot stone wall.”

“What kind of place has an eight foot stone wall around it?” Greene demanded.

“A convent,” Benny supplied. “Look, I'm sorry I lied,” he went on smoothly. “I'm not a priest, I was using this costume as a sort of shield to prevent these men from shooting me on sight. The truth is I'm just some man who is trying to find a young boy's sister, these men took her, I'm trying to find a little girl's mother, I think they took her too. The nuns have plenty of space behind their wall, they have fresh water, a garden some bee hives for honey and chickens.”

“Will they take us in?” The young pregnant woman asked.

“They're nuns, charity is kind of their thing.”

“I'm tired of running,” the Asian woman said. “I don't care anymore, as long as we have a wall and a bed I can sleep in for days. I'm in. I don’t even care if we die, I just want to stop running.”

“Me too,” the pregnant woman said.

“If you think we should, Corporal?” Greene asked.

Delgado nodded. “Yeah. What more have we to lose?”

“Then I'm in,” Greene said.

Saph sighed, but nodded.

“Jack? Billy?” Delgado urged the remaining men.

They both nodded.

“Kane?! Auggie?!” Greene shouted. “You in or out?”

“We don't know what the fuck is going on!” Kane shouted back from the other room.

“That boy loves to fight,” Saph said. “He's in.”

“What about Auggie?” The Asian lady asked.

“It's eight to one, either he's in or he can walk. I'm getting my ass behind a wall and I'm staying there.”

“Come on, Saph. That's not nice,” Delgado cautioned the woman with a breathy almost laugh. “We can ask him later. Alright,” he said turning to Benny, “ we're all in. But we wait until my people are at the convent before you get your answers from this man.”

“We can't,” Benny said. “The nuns would not let us renege on our deal with him and kill him. You have to trust me.”

Again the marine seemed to be considering it, his hand on his hip.

“Okay, then you let me meet these nuns first, then we get information from this man.” Delgado negotiated.

Benny sighed. He'd have rather just get the information first, but he could understand Delgado's side. “Okay. I know there's an old farmhouse near the convent, we can head there in the morning. Leave the man there tied up or something, take you all on to the convent. Then go back to ask some questions.”

“And these nuns are real nuns?” Greene asked.

Benny smiled. “Yeah. There's an Abbess and everything. She's a pistol, so keep your eye on that one.”

Delgado nodded then and held out his hand. “Fine. We have a deal.”

Benny smiled and took his offered hand. “Good. I was worried you might shoot me in the face.”

“We still might, let's see what tomorrow brings.”

#graveyard dirt & salt series #help support an independent author #it's free novel

13 notes · View notes

graveyarddirtseries · 3 years

Photo

Graveyard Dirt & Salt

Chapter 7: Mena

Sitting up now, he pinned her with a look, that look he had when he was being a proper marine. It was commanding, cold and just firm enough to make her feel like a little girl caught in a lie. When his blue-grey eyes narrowed and chilled, they became weapons used to spear a person still, used to rend them open and bare to his scrutiny.

Another day came and it was one more Sister Mary Patrick wouldn't get to see.

Time always seemed so passively cruel to her. How despite anything which happened, it just ticked, ticked, ticked away.

Young Grace Harper had noticed this after her father died, when Christmas came and went and came again, she grew older and he would forever remain the same age.

Kneeling by his headstone in the Laurel Grove Cemetery, she would bring her father sunflowers plucked from her mother's garden, and tears that never seemed like they would ever stop.

This year Mena would become older than her father had ever gotten to be. And the thought unsettled her. She had claimed, during her wilder years in Atlanta, that she would be dead by the age he had been when he died.

But here she was, kneeling beside Sister Mary Patrick's resting place, hastily dug into the cemetery behind their church.

She didn't have any flowers to bring, her beloved rose bushes weren't in bloom yet and it was too late for the lilacs and wisteria.

But she brought something, because you had to offer something to the dead as a remembrance.

It was a small cloth doll, something she had made one day out of scraps of linen and fabric, wanting to give it to the nuns who went to sell their honey and goods at the farmer's market to give to some small child.

It never got to make that journey into town.

So it was placed at the base of the rough wooden cross that marked Sister Mary Patrick's grave. She would be in a better place.

Mena wouldn't lose another nun, she wouldn't let her girls live through this all over again. Mary Patrick would want them to rise from the ashes, she would say it was a lesson, hard taught, but hopefully learned, sent by God himself.

“Who the fuck let you and that ass clown decide anything about my sister without me?!”

The stillness of her morning was broken by the loud teenage boy, shouting at who she could only imagine was the poor Lieutenant somewhere in the morning mists of her convent grounds.

Pushing to her feet, she sought out the sound, wanting to silence the language and hopefully help the Lieutenant placate the boy.

“You know what I don't need you fucking idiots dealing with my shit!”

The marine's low tone was beginning to be heard as Mena rounded the corner of the cloister, finding both arguers standing beside the water pump for their well.

“I can deal with this myself!”

“Son, you couldn't even defend yourself or keep my back safe at that cabin. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with not being good with guns or fighting, but in this instance, your sister's survival would be best placed in the hands of Benny or myself.”

Mena approached the two, coming to a stop just behind the Lieutenant.

“I don't even need any of you!” Grayson stated.

“Why are you being such a stubborn little cabri?” The Lieutenant asked softly. “We want you here with us, we want to help you. But time is important and you're not ready for fighting or recon. You come with me, I get you trained up.”

“I'm not weak!” Grayson argued, like a child who knew he was, but hoped just words would convince the adults he was an old veteran, ragged and rough from war.

Reaching out, Mena placed her hand very, very lightly on the boy's shoulder, he jumped, but didn't leap away, just a twitch.

“I appreciate this is a conversation we must have, gentlemen, but there are nuns sleeping just over there and you are using some very potent language.”

“Sorry, Missy,” the Lieutenant said.

“Sorry,” Grayson murmured, embarrassed.

“Grayson,” she said. “I don't know Mr. Malone very well, but I do know is that he loves Annie and he will never leave her behind. He's going to find your sister and he'll bring her home to you.”

“Did you see his shoes?” Grayson demanded. “They were more expensive than my sister's first car.”

“Junker?” The Lieutenant teased, trying to lighten the mood.

Grayson shook his head. “No, she worked really hard to buy it new. I mean, it was basic as shit, but...”

Mena smiled. “You know,” she said. “I would kind of love to hear about her some more. If you don't mind telling me about Haley?” “You're just trying to distract me,” Grayson replied sullenly.

“I'm a nun, Grayson, I don't have the capabilities of trickery and lies,” she lied. “You get ten extra lashings in hell for each lie you tell.”

The Lieutenant beamed broadly, sitting down at the pump to flop his bag on the ground, digging through it. “You'll have to tell us all about Haley tonight around the fire,” he said. “Right now, we have to get hunting while the hunting is good.”

Mena gave Grayson's forearm a warm squeeze. “Be careful out there, you two? I want both of you back in good health.”

“What kind of mischief are you up to right now?” The Lieutenant called out after her.

“Well, there's a little girl who will be waking up to find she's been left behind and I want to be there for her.”

“You're a sweet girl, Missy.”

“Woman,” she stated, turning around to face him. “I'm a woman, Lieutenant. Girls are the things made of sugar and spice and everything nice.”

“And what are you made of then?” He teased.

“Oatmeal and granola and nothing interesting,” she returned. “See you two soon.”

Inside the convent, she passed a few nuns who were just entering the dining room after their morning prayers in their rooms, heading into the one she had given to Annie.

The child was in the middle of pulling on her little shoes, the pretty purple ones with velcro.

“Good morning,” she greeted the girl brightly. “Did you sleep well, honey?”

The child nodded, eyes darting past her to the empty hall beyond. Benny was usually the first person she saw in the morning, and Mena knew it wouldn't take her long to figure things out.

“I have to collect the eggs from the hen house for breakfast,” Mena went on smoothly. “Would you like to help me?”

Already putting two and two together, Annie sort of bowed her head for a moment, before furrowing her brow and nodding firmly.

“Come on,” Mena said, holding her hand out to the girl. “Let's go outside, it's beautiful this morning.”

Mena waited until they were in the morning sunshine, before she stopped Annie just under her peach tree.

“Sweetie, Mr. Malone had to leave us last night, but-” she added quickly as Annie begin to panic. “He promised me he'd be back and I told him that it was a great sin to lie to a nun.”

Annie absorbed this information for all of a second, before she bolted away from Mena, heading for the gate.

Halfway there, she was scooped up by the Lieutenant who had been loitering about the front of the church with a couple of the younger nuns, the marine holding the squirming girl gently, but firmly as she kicked and sobbed.

“Hey now, boo,” he cooed to her. “What's the ruckus?”

Annie didn't say anything, just reached her hands longingly towards the gate.

“Hey now,” he went on, setting the child down and squatting before her to rub away her tears. “Benny'll be back, he had to go out to find your mama, but he told me that he would be expecting you to be here when he came back and if you head out them gates, then I guess he won't be able to find you.”

Annie calmed somewhat, still sobbing pathetically before him.

“Now, you go ahead and cry, honeybee,” the Cajun cooed soothingly.

Mena knelt behind Annie, so both adults sort of encompassed the child.

“You wanna a hug from me or Mena?”

Annie turned to Mena and buried herself against Mena's chest.

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Mena whispered over Annie's head.

The marine beamed. “You don't keep me around for my pretty face.”

All day Mena kept Annie close to her, wanting to distract the child.

But often her eyes would turn to the gates, or to a door, or anywhere Benny could pop up from.

“Maybe with no one left alive we can finally pick our own habit styles.”

They were outside, doing the washing the old fashioned way, hot water boiled over the fire, a kettle big enough to do a small load of laundry and some soap, the garments were spun around and around in the kettle with a baseball bat from their sport closet from when they took their annual summer picnic camping trip.

“That way we don't have to do so much washing,” Sister Mary Claire finished.

Mena felt several pairs of eyes on her and cleared her throat politely. “I think if any of you want to wear more practical items we can accommodate that.”

“Our habit has always been a proud symbol of our order,” Sister Thomas Aquinas argued. Mena knew she would be the last one to hold out to the old ways, she was set firmly in her beliefs.

“If you want to remain in the habit you can, but it might prove practical to change, something modest though, please. Let's not go too far into the realm of short shorts and halter tops.”

“There goes my summer look,” Sister Dymphna retorted, cackling along with a few of the younger nuns.

“I can't wait to get some floral patterns back into my life,” Sister Felicity Perpetua murmured.

“I think Sister Mary Patrick would have loved to have dressed plainly,” Sister Mary Agnes said.

Mena nodded. “She'd love for us to flourish in the wake of her passing.”

“Do you think we will?” Mary Monica asked.

“If we manage to learn some self defence from the Lieutenant, then I think we have a very good chance. But there will be change and some sacrifice.” Mena said.

“Will we really have to shoot people?” Mary Claire asked.

“They aren't people anymore,” Mary Elizabeth said. “They're dead, aren't they?”

Everyone looked at Mena, who continued wringing out the undergarment she had in hand.

She slowly and carefully pinned it to the line that ran from the side of the cloister to a pole about five feet away. There was a desire in her to avoid the question, but she knew she would have to answer it as best she could.

“We don't know,” she said finally to everyone's shock. When several nuns begin speaking at once, Mena held up her hands to silence them. “The Lieutenant isn't certain they are dead or just diseased, but!” She added as more questions came at her. “We can be assured, they are beyond our mortal help, so regardless. They are violent and they would most certainly kill you as witnessed by poor Mary Patrick. So don't hesitate to kill them, if you need to.”

“Will we be punished by God?” Mary Monica asked. “Is it a sin?”

“I can't answer that,” Mena said. “But I think, in my heart at least, we can safely say God did not put us on earth to allow ourselves to be picked off by these abominations. I think He would want us to fight and survive. That's our trial.”

“What about other things?” Felicity Perpetua asked.

“Such as?”

“The men?”

Most of the nuns began an uproar.

“I mean!” The young nun amended quickly. “Are we free to talk to them?”

“I never told you to not speak with them, just to be wary,” Mena said.

“But they're very secular in their speech,” Mary Monica pointed out.

“Just because they are, doesn't mean you will be.”

“And where does the line get drawn then?” Thomas Aquinas demanded.

“Wherever it needs to be to divide our world from theirs without isolating ourselves from them,” Mena returned coolly. Thomas Aquinas was...argumentative with her at the best of times and the worst.

“Think of this place as more than a convent now,” she went on. “It's a mission, and our mission is to offer shelter and protection for those who seek it here behind these walls. In return the Lieutenant and maybe others can help protect our way of life and our home.”

“Is...is God still with us?”

The voice was so soft, so shyly spoken that Mena took a moment to register it. None of her nuns had such a soft way about them, well...the novitiate did.

Mary Elizabeth sat, head bowed, her work laying damp in her lap.

An expected roar of assurances from the other nuns never came and Mena found herself looking at eight pairs of eyes all solemnly gazing at her.

Even Sister Gertrude, sitting in her chair, with her pretty sunhat on with one of her cats in her lap, managed enough clarity of mind to gaze over at her expectantly.

They didn't want reassurances, they wanted an answer that Mena never had. God was always just faith. You had faith that he was there, that he guided you, that he heard your prayers, but...this was too much for her to even know.

She had even wondered this herself recently, had been wondering about this since she saw the dead walking the earth.

Had He abandoned them after rapture happened? Had He never existed?

She could lie and say yes, she could lie and say no, but the only truth she could tell them was a sturdy, “I don't know.”

The nuns seemed to absorb this like a bumper car hitting a brick wall, it rocked them and they gave a single shudder that ran through the entire group, before they just sort of accepted it and went back to work.

Except Mary Elizabeth, who sort of hunched in on herself more and began to softly sob.

Setting down her own work, Mena moved towards the young woman and knelt smoothly down beside her, an arm going around the younger woman.

“Listen,” she said loud enough to address the other nuns as well. “I can't speak for your faith, if you think that God is still with us, then He is, but I just...I can't honestly answer you, Mary Elizabeth. Shy,” she amended, using the woman's real name, hoping to snap her out of her mood.

It seemed to work as the young woman looked up at her quickly at the sound of her own name used.

Hugging her closer, Mena went on, “but I do know that all of you have me and the Lieutenant now and Grayson and even Mr. Malone, though he may not stay. And if we have each other, then whether God is watching over those we lost in the rapture or wherever He may be, we have each other and that will make us stronger if we remain together.”

Mary Claire set her work aside and flopped down beside them. “I need a hug too, Mother Mena.”

“Me too,” Felicity Perpetua added, joining them hastily.

Before she knew it the other nuns were all clustered together, two of them going over to hold Sister Gertrude in her chair, an entire flock of white habits spread out on the grass, hugging and embracing each other, some of them sobbing a little, their pent up fear and anxiety freely flowing.

This was what Mena loved about her lot in life. It wasn't the church, it wasn't prayer or lighting candles or the relic of Saint Cecilia they kept in the reliquary.

It was that these were her girls, her nuns. They were the only family she had now and she had to protect them, they couldn't withstand another loss.

A shadow was cast over them all and Mena opened her eyes to a sight that had her heart skipping several beats. In the time it took to register the blood and the gore, she also registered the fact that it was plastered to the Lieutenant who was holding a deer carcass wrapped in a blue tarp in his arms bridal style, standing over them.

He was the epitome of filth. Standing out against the fluttering white of their drying habits beside him, covered in sweat and blood and dirt and other things Mena knew were best left to mystery.

“Oh, Lieutenant,” she scolded him, as her nuns returned to their work at the intrusion. “You scared ten years off my life.”

“Sorry,” he said. “I was about to ask if everything was okay?”

She nodded.

He turned to walk off, when she called out, “Lieutenant?”

Turning back to face her, the Cajun grinned a little nervously. “Yeah?”

“When was the last time you bathed, honey?” She asked.

“Oh,” his head dipped to the ground at his feet, peering over the deer in the tarp in his arms. “Uh...well...I walk myself through creeks here and there.”

Mena looked at the poor man, he tried hard, from what she could see, to be neat and orderly, but he was absolutely bordering on noxious. “We're doing laundry today, it's our day to do it, would you be so kind as to hand over your shirt and pants?”

“Well,” he began almost shyly. “It's...I'm not about to make you wash my skivvies,” he attempted a charming grin at her.

“Lieutenant, please? We're women, you think we don't have dirty clothes from time to time? Mary Agnes, could you maybe set aside some hot water for the bath for the Lieutenant?”

“Oh! No!” The marine protested. “Really! Ladies, I'm...I know I'm a dirty Cajun boy, you don't need to...”

“Don't be embarrassed, Lieutenant,” Mena insisted. “We'd prefer if you took a quick bath, actually.”

“Oh,” his face fell and for a moment Mena wished she hadn't wounded him as she did, but then he grinned crookedly. Dropping the deer, dropping his pack, the man shucked his shirt first and handed it over to her. “Start with that, I suppose.”

Tossing his shirt directly into the kettle, Mena nodded.

“I'm sorry if I'm a little ripe for you ladies,” the marine apologized. Again he sort of dipped his head shyly. “Guess you can't take the trash out of the trailer trash, yeah?”

Realizing how awful she must have made the poor man feel, Mena quickly stood up to follow him as he headed for the stump they were using as a butcher's block.

“Lieutenant,” she said, falling in stride beside him. “I didn't mean to embarrass you back there.”

He shook his head. “I'm a dirty boy,” he admitted. “It's the end of the world. I just...well, I hope I didn't offend you ladies none. I've been trying to keep neat, but...every day it's either the uggies coating you in something or hunting.”

She nodded. “Well, all the same, I shouldn't have brought it up so publicly. I suppose I'm just...disordered today.”

Stopping, he turned to her. “You alright?”

“I think so, just...accepting a few things, I guess. When you're done with the deer, I'll help you find some hot water and privacy for a wash. If you'd like.”

“If you'd like,” he repeated.

Staring up at the man's pretty blue-grey eyes, Mena couldn't decide if she wanted to weep or embrace the poor man, he put up such a front, but there were moments of real vulnerability in his eyes that tugged at her heart a little more than they should. He was like a child buried inside the body of a grown man. A grown man that, as he stood towering over her holding the deer carcass, she could so very clearly see his breathtaking power and strength.

“What happened here?” She asked, hoping to change the subject, to smooth over her faux pas in embarrassing him in company. Pressing her finger lightly to a deep, wide, jagged scar that tore down his side.

“Time and tides,” he replied casually. “Wanna learn how to gut and clean this doe?”

Glancing to the other nuns where Mena was supposed to be helping, she considered his invitation for a moment, before saying, “I shouldn't leave my chores to be someone else's burden.”

He nodded.

As she turned to leave him, he said, “you know...” he began. “I appreciate you washing my shirt and taking care of me. I don't need you to do it, understand, but I'm grateful all the same.”

“Lieutenant, our amenities are yours now if you need them. We can't just turn on our bathtub anymore because without power our pumps won't run, but we can heat you up some water for a good soak.”

“Holes in a bucket,” he pointed out.

“What's that?”

“Makeshift shower, holes in a bucket. It's faster and saves time.”

She smiled. “Oh. We might have to hook something up for it.”

He nodded. “Or we could figure out a way to get power back to the convent...I don't know much about electrical engineering, but...solar or wind maybe? I'll give it a think.”

Mena brushed her hand over his shoulder warmly. “Well, for now don't worry yourself too much about our power. We're just grateful you're bringing us home meat.”

He beamed. “It's what I'm good at.”

“Tell Grayson to bring us his clothing too, if he can, we'll wash those as well.” Mena added as the marine turned to join the young man at the stump.

“Sure sure.”

Rejoining the nuns at the fire, Mena eased down to her work wringing out the clean clothing.

It was an entire blissful minute before Dymphna asked, “so is looking okay with this new order, Mother Mena? Because I'm looking and that marine is beautiful.”

“The apple was fine on the tree, Dymphna,” Mary Agnes warned playfully.

The nuns laughed softly, but Mena was quiet, head bent to her work.

“It was a joke,” Dymphna apologized.

“No,” Mena began, “it was fine, just...we should do our best to try to make him feel welcome here. I'm afraid we've begun our relationship with the Lieutenant a little unsteadily. He's given us much more than we have shown him and I think we should remember that. And I'm not innocent of these charges either. I didn't even want him here. That was my biggest mistake, could have cost us more than just...what we've lost.”

“Here's your shirt, Lieutenant,” she said, placing the cleaner, dry shirt down beside the metal wash tub she had been filling half full of deliciously hot water, bringing some cool water in to lower the boiling temperature a little for the man to ease himself down into it.

Coated in blood now from the deer, the marine eyed the tub warily. “Not sure I can fit myself in this little thimble,” he remarked, nudging it with a boot.

Mena smiled and turned to set the jug she had been using to bring cool water in for the bath beside the door. “Well, you can try all you want. Stick your feet in it at least, heat them up nice and warm, then start at the bottom and work upwards.”

Behind her she heard two thuds and a zip and turned before it registered, nearly catching the Lieutenant in mid disrobe.

“Oh!” She covered her eyes.

“You had your back turned,” he replied sheepishly. “Thought you were leaving.” Still it sounded like he wasn't shamed into redressing as she then heard the clothing fall and the soft splashes of him stepping into the tub.

“Do you...need anything else?” She asked.

“Well, just hold on now, because if my ass gets stuck in this tub, we're going to need some Crisco and a whole lot of leverage,” he teased, causing Mena to giggle, it was half nervous, half amused. She wouldn't ever admit it, but she might have loosened her hand shield a little. Just a little! In case he fell.

“Alright, I'm in, got myself covered, your chastity is safe.” He remarked. “For now.”

Dropping her hands, she looked at him, crammed into the tub like a sardine in a can, towel draped across the important bits, legs spidered up and out, feet planted on the floor. From the amount of water displaced on the floor, she imagined there wasn't a whole bunch left in the tub with the giant man.

“Well, looks relaxing,” she lied.

“Hm.”

“Let me get you some fresh hot water to replace what you've lost,” she said, moving towards him with another towel in hand. “And here, if you put this behind you, just...in here,” she leaned him forward and tucked the thick towel between his lower back and the hard metal rim of the tub.

His body was hot and slick from the water, and as much as she didn't want to insult him again, she knew from the grime that came off on her, that she would need to change her habit to a clean one again.

“How long have you gone without a proper bath?” She asked him.

“A long time,” he admitted. “Maybe since this all began. I couldn't find a good place, the water's dangerous if it's over your head, it can be over the heads of the sinkers.”

“Sinkers?”

“Yeah, the dead will get into water over their heads and sink down, they don't live as long down there as the land ones, but they like to haunt the depths and grab ya when you're not expecting it. Stay out of the deep waters, yeah?”

“I will,” she replied, horrified.

When Mena returned to the bathroom - that ineffectual place that mostly they just used for bathing in privacy in and dumping the water down the shower drain into their lagoon far beyond the wall, she found the Lieutenant slumped over sideways in the small tub, his arm draped dramatically on the floor.

“Are you alright?” She asked, carefully adding more water to his bath, mindful of his flesh and the speed which she introduced the warmer water.

“Marat,” he replied with a grin. “You ever see that painting?”

“You're playing in the bath now?”

He chuckled. “Yeah. Just waiting for you to come back and warm me up, this floor is frigid.”

“Then get your arm off it,” she returned, gently nudging it with the toe of her shoe.

His hand grasped at the toe of her shoe and he lifted it a little.

“Stop it! I have hot water in my hands,” she scolded, laughing despite the situation as he released her and continued to fidget in the water. “You're very fidgety for a marine. ADHD?”

“No thanks, I already have some,” he teased, easing back against the fluffy, now soaked towel she had rested behind him. “I don't know. Maybe...something undiagnosed. Made school hard, you know?”

“Um-hm.” She set the bucket down, there was still some hot water left in it, but she didn't want to scald the poor man in the tub, so she left the rest to cool a little. “Are you at least getting clean while you fidget?”

“I think so...” he remarked, eyeing his arms and legs. “But my feet are freezing out there on the floor.”

Mena moved to his feet and dipping a clean cloth into the warm water of his tub, she helped him clean and warm his feet.

“Service comes with this?”

She smiled. “Missions clean the feet of the poor, why can't I clean the feet of the mighty too?”

He dropped his head back and grinned. “Well, don't serve me because you have to. I'm not above scrubbing my own damned hooves.”

Mena laughed. “I like you, Lieutenant. You're a calming presence.”

“Even with all my fidgeting?” He asked.

“Yes.”

He beamed wider. It was a very boyish, almost sheepish grin he had, something that could bend a person's will if he turned it on just hard enough to charm, but he held it back with modesty and that sort of shy way he only allowed one side to lift up higher than the other. Taking hold of the bucket of now properly cooled water, Mena tucked his feet inside it and allowed them to soak in the warmth.

“Why are you taking good care of me?” He asked. “Not that I'm ungrateful, but...seems a little much.”

“I was hoping to work up to a proper thank you to you for all you've done so far for us.”

“Oh yeah?” He asked.

“Hmm.”

The duality of the man was both sweet and gentle and hard and firm, in more ways than just his mental state.

“Come here,” he commanded her with a casual crook of his finger and despite her slight fear, Mena found herself obeying him, shuffling on her knees towards the top of him, eyes unable to look away from his.

With her maybe a hand's width away from his face, he studied her hard and long, before rasping, “you up to something?”

“No.” She swore.

“If you're working towards something, just tell me,” he assured her. “I take honesty better than manipulation.”

“I just wanted to show my appreciation for you,” she whispered, not at all shaking a little because of the intensity of his eyes and the rasp of his baritone.

It had been a long, long, very long time since she had been this close to a naked man and maybe she made a mistake wanting to wash his feet, maybe she had made a bunch of mistakes. And maybe a few of them had been on purpose, because she was still a flesh and blood woman and he was a very, very charming man.

“Don't be scared,” he replied suddenly, hand wet and warm from the bath on her shoulder now, pushing her back a little gently. “I was just worried you might be trying to get me to do something wild like kill the boy child or something. And then I was worried you were trying to seduce me or something, because there's no better way to prey on a person than to prey on their loneliness.”

She shook her head. “No, I was just...trying to be kind. Is that how you interrogate everyone in your life?”

“Just marines,” he returned. “Honestly. Don't worry, I would never hurt you. Just...tell me things, yeah? Be open. I'm more forgiving than God.”

“Blasphemy,” she pointed out, moving back to his feet.

“I think we need more honesty between the two of us if we plan on existing here for a while together,” he added.

“I agree.” She looked up at him. “Are you really that lonely? Don't they train marines to isolate and survive on their own.”

“Well sure, but...you can train a man to live in isolation, doesn't mean it's good for his head.”

“No, I suppose not.”

“Truthfully, when I first got here, all I desperately wanted to do was talk to someone who didn't grunt or groan. Well...at first, anyways.” He added with a roguish grin.

She smiled sadly. “I'm sorry. I sent you away. All you wanted was to talk.”

“No, you did the right thing. People aren't the same anymore, you can't just throw open your doors to them. Seems it's survival of the fittest out there now, the uggies are just mosquitoes at the BBQ.”

“Well, you have us now. And we wanted to invite you and Grayson to eat with us tonight, in the dining hall.”

“Really?” He asked, eyebrows raising.

“Um-hm.”

“Ladies say 'yes', Missy,” he teased, repeating something she had often said to Annie in front of him.

Without thinking, she smacked his knee with the back of her hand and clucked her tongue at him.

He laughed. “You can't hit me after you bathed my feet! I don't think Jesus would approve!”

Mena laughed with him, though a little more moderately. “Behave yourself then.” She warned. “And tomorrow when you go out, try to find some clothes that might fit you, so next time we do laundry you have a change you can slip in to.”

“That's like asking me to find a Babe Ruth rookie card, Missy. I'm a big fella and the Georgian backwoods has some little, tiny men.”

#graveyard dirt & salt #chapter 7 #novel #support an author

7 notes · View notes

graveyarddirtseries · 3 years

Photo

Graveyard Dirt & Salt

Chapter 6

Not wanting to touch her without permission, knowing how his mother was with men and how big he was and how scary he could be, the Lieutenant sat beside her awkwardly for a moment, before settling his hand on his knee, palm open, facing the vaulted ceiling above their heads. It was an offering for her if she needed it and she took it after a moment, squeezing with a small, strong hand.

The backroom of the Catholic church was lit only by the flickering light of a couple small candles.

In the glow the Lieutenant watched as Benny preened in front of a full length mirror, he felt like his face was drawn in a grim, tight mask, but in the reflection seen over his shoulder, all he saw was a tired, middle aged marine who could use a good shower and a shave.

The shadows cast by the light hooded his eyes in darkness, making him appear like a spectre, some boogin from out of a Gothic novel.

The thing about mirrors he never cared for, was how honest they were. They held no dogs in the fight when it came to showing a man everything. You'd see time and life on your own face, wrinkles and worries and everything the sun kissed in a mirror. And from his own experience, after his mama died, the Lieutenant knew that the mirror also reflected emotion.

It was before a mirror that his Mamere had told him that his mama was gone. Thirteen years old, holding his toothbrush in his hand, staring at the old woman over his shoulder. He thought time would heal his mama, that everything bad that had happened to her would fade with time.

In his youth, being as foolish as all children were, Lafayette Vancoughnett IV, named after his Papere and not the man who had raped him into his mama's womb, thought that his mama would come back someday. That they would be together.

As he aged in the mirror, any reflection he looked into, the face he saw was of a man who came to realize that he didn't look much like his mama. The face that looked back at him, he theorized, must have been the same face that had taken his mama into those dark woods, held her down, and forced reality on her.

As time became lines etched on his face, Lafayette came understand that this face of his was why his mama could never really look at him. That if he had maybe stopped forcing his Papere to bring him to the hospital where his mama was, that maybe she wouldn't have to relive that night in the woods over and over and over again.

The mirrors and reflections of his face had always brought back into his mind how utterly he loathed himself, because he loathed the man who had driven his mama into a grave at the age of only twenty-nine.

His face wasn't his own, because his face belonged to a monster.

And maybe if he hadn't lived, if maybe sweet Louise, his mama, would still be alive. And she'd be married, with a whole bunch of children who didn't haunt her the way this only son of hers did.

If Lafayette had known then, what he knew now, he would have run off, left Louise to her happy home, to the parents who did their best to love her and the bastard offspring of the crime committed against her.

He would have done everything to make it right.

But he was a boy and he never knew entirely why his mama couldn't look at him, why she was in a hospital.

In those days girls like her, girls like his mama, they didn't stay home on medication to balance the serotonin in them. In those days the best you could do for a girl who tried three times to kill herself, to end the misery she was in, was to put her away. Surround her with padded rooms and locked doors and nurses.

He would have burned his face off, if only to spare Louise the terror he had unknowingly brought upon her every time he visited her. All he wanted in his greedy youth was a hug or a smile or for her to even notice him. He would bring her report cards and drawings and little things he found that he wanted to share with his mother, and the only thing he ever brought her that lingered with Louise were bad memories of a broken night, leaves in her hair, bruising and dried tears on her face.

No silly turkey's made of the cut out outline of his hand could ever smooth over what that man did to a fifteen year old girl.

So, no, he kept clear of mirrors when he could, because he didn't care for the reminder. The face of the monster he wore it haunted him as much as it haunted his mama.

“You still with me, Cajun?”

Snapped from his thoughts, the marine whipped his head up to meet Benny's gaze in the reflection. “Yeah.”

Benny narrowed his sharp eyes at him, but thankfully kept quiet, instead, turning around with his arms out.

“How do I look?”

“You look good,” he finally managed to say. Hoping the words might break the spell of the haunted figure in the mirror. “Like a real priest.”

“Think priests look good, Cajun?” Benny teased, pulling a little at the dog collar at his throat.

Opening his mouth to give the fancy man a smart assed response, the Lieutenant was distracted by Benny suddenly whipping his head to the right to peer at the open doorway where Mena stood like a pocket-sized ghost, her face haunted in the flickering of the candles.

She stood in her pink pyjamas with the pretty little white polka dots and her short, almost black hair ruffled from sleep, or rather perhaps, sleeplessness.

“What's the meaning of this?” She asked in a tremulous tone, bleating like a lost sheep on the open plains.

Benny spoke first, slowly and unsure, halfway between teasing and mocking, “fashion show?”

“Lieutenant?” She asked, turning to him.

“Paon thinks he's gonna try lighting out on his own.” He said helpfully. “Thinks it's best if he heads out alone to try to find these men. And I think he's right. You all need me here and that kid isn't ready to get into a fight.”

“Very well,” she said, holding up a hand, fingers spread, gesturing vaguely at Benny, “but why the blasphemy?” That tiny hand then went to touch her chest, just at the base of her throat.

“Devil worship,” Benny retorted quickly, grinning wickedly. “At an orgy.”

“Benny,” the Lieutenant said firmly, it was both to begin his sentence and a warning, “thinks it might make the men less inclined to just kill him if he hides behind the cloth.”

“And Annie?”

“I'll be back for her,” Benny said, suddenly serious.

“And here I thought you were beginning to like us, Mr. Malone,” Mena teased a little.

Reaching out, Benny tugged at the lapel on Mena's pyjama top, before his hand danced up and he tweaked her chin. “If you're going to miss me that much, at least be waiting with a kiss when I get back, huh?” He teased.

Mena slapped his hand away with a quick as a snake swat, before saying, “your flirtations have never and will never work on me, Mr. Malone. Now, if you're going to be parading around like a fool in a dog collar, at least do it right. You want to lose the vestments and wear something simple. A full length cassock might be best for a long distance recognition, but we can layer it and once you're in, you can take it off for better movement.” She said, moving towards the closet.

“What are you doing up so late, anyways?” The Lieutenant asked.

“I came to light a candle for Sister Mary Patrick, I couldn't sleep and thought I'd say another prayer for her.” Mena replied curtly. The subject of the nun off limits in just her tone. As she pulled out a few things from the closet, she said, “I really wish you two wouldn't leave me out of things like this.”

“Well, it's...not a sexist thing,” Benny said. “It’s a nun kind of ruins the party thing.”

“You make the fancy man uncomfortable,” the Lieutenant said with a smirk.

“Being in the presence of raw sexuality can do that to a man, I'm told,” Mena sighed.

There was a beat where the Lieutenant thought he hadn't really heard what he'd heard, where even Benny cast a furrowed, confused look at the Cajun.

Setting the black garments down on the table with a frustrated sigh, Mena said, “I...I haven't been sleeping and that was...a slip of the tongue.”

“No,” Benny argued lightly. “You said what you said and you can't unsay it. Abbess,” he exclaimed, “do you have a dirty sense of humour?”

“I'm exhausted and you boys drive me a little...batty.”

Gasping, Benny gripped his chest in much the same place Mena had clutched her own breast earlier. “Language, Abbess!”

Mena gave him a stern, displeased look and said, “here, put these on. They'll be cooler in the Georgian heat and better to blend in later.”

Sitting in the front pew of the church, waiting for Benny to dress, the Lieutenant watched as Mena finished up her prayer for Sister Mary Patrick, before moving to sit in the pew beside him. The light she had lit for the poor nun flickering in the dark like a lightning bug all a glow.

“La misère semble toujours vous suivre.” He murmured sadly.

“Beg your pardon?” Mena asked.

The Lieutenant shook his head a little. “Just something my mama used to say to me.”

“What does it mean?”

Almost hypnotized by the flickering candle, the Lieutenant was quiet for a moment, contemplating getting up and pacing. He didn't do well with just sitting, not when there was so much that needed doing.

“Lieutenant?” Mena asked.

“Misery seems to always follow you. La misère semble toujours vous suivre, Lafayette, she'd say.” He replied, still watching the flame.

“That's hardly a kind thing to say to a boy,” Mena argued gently.

“Mais, she wasn't wrong,” he returned, easing back in the pew to settle in more comfortably. Seems whichever way he wriggled his ass, the hard wood wasn't going to offer comfort. It seemed a perfect metaphor to how he felt about religion in general, he supposed.

Beside him Mena was quiet, prim and pretty as she always was, sitting like a queen on the pew, not a wriggle or a squirm to her posture on the hard wood under her derriere.

“The first person I saw torn apart by the uggies was from above. We were being sent in to a hospital towards the end, when things got out of hand and as the 'copter set down, I watched a young nurse run out towards us in the parking lot and they set upon her like a pack of wolves. They don't eat them, the dead, they just...have this abnormal anger to them, this hatred of the living. Or maybe they aren't dead and just hate those who aren't infected, aren't claimed by whatever it is that's got a hold on them.” He glanced over at the nun, her face stoic, eyes on the flickering light. “Lord, I never saw anything like that. I was startled, afraid, I don't feel fear like normal people, I never have. Things that should scare me only drive me to wonder, to curiosity. But I was scared then. I was helpless for the first time in my life, I felt like my own body wouldn't move, wouldn't act. You get to used to it. To them. You wander around outside these walls long enough and you see them as an annoyance, another bump in the road. But they were people, they are people, I suppose. Something preyed on them and they fell.”

“You said infection,” Mena asked.

He nodded.

“Do you...are they not dead then?”

“I don't know. Everyone who knows what this is is buried underground in their bunkers, holed up until this all blows over. I'm just a marine, Missy, I'm not a scientist or a politician. I'm muscle and metal.”

Glancing over, he spied a sort of furrow to her brow and knew immediately what it was.

“Don't worry,” he said, trying to soothe her, “you haven't been killing anyone who would object. If they aren't dead, they aren't ever going to come back to us the way they were. It's either you're killing abominations or mercy killing the dying.”

“Still not much of a consolation.”

“Hey,” he said firmly. “You saw how they took to Sister Mary Patrick. They would do that to any of us. Killing them is just like clearing your world of misery.”

“That could be said by either side of this fight, Lieutenant.”

“Sure,” he agreed. “But only one of these sides can talk and rationalize.”

Emerging from the sacristy, Benny stepped up to the pulpit. He looked like a priest and that was at least a little comforting to the Lieutenant. Maybe his plan wasn't so bad.

“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Benny said from behind the pulpit.

“Did you really study the bible this afternoon, Mr. Malone?” Mena asked. “I'm rather impressed.” Standing up, she approached him. “When I saw you with the bible in the shadows of the church, I thought maybe you were just being mocking.”

Benny grinned. “Maybe I was. Or maybe I was pulling shit out of my ass and flinging it to see what stuck. Hey, check this out,” he went on, running a hand through his hair, settling it back into less of a loose finger brushing and more into a tamped down, alter-boy style. “Huh? Priestly.”

“Are you sure about this, paon?” The Lieutenant asked one last time, feeling like he needed to ask it.

Benny nodded. “Yeah. Jesus, don't start crying or I'm going to start crying. Fuck.”

“Language in the church, please?” Mena asked, sounded like she was hanging by a string on patience with the man.

For a brief moment, in the dark of the night, lit only by the flickering candle of Sister Mary Patrick's memory, the three of them milled about, Benny rubbing the bottom of his expensive ankle boot over the red carpeting by the pulpit, Mena sitting perched like a pretty sparrow on the pew beside the Lieutenant who was gazing at the candle.

“Welp,” Benny finally said. “I'm going head off.”

Mena stood up suddenly, almost panicked. “I don't like this. No. You're not going. We can think of something else, something better.”

“It's really cute that you're already in love with me,” Benny said with a grin. “But, babe, I can take care of myself. I promise.”

“No offence, Mr. Malone, but by the looks of your suit and your shoes and that fifty dollar grin, I'd say you have-”

“JSOC,” Benny said suddenly. He said it so simply that for a moment the Lieutenant didn't register his words, before the marine was suddenly intrigued.

“What?” He asked asked.

Benny scowled. “Fuck it, society's fucked anyways. I was...tasked with doing things for the military.”

“What things?” Mena demanded.

“Intel,” the Lieutenant supplied for him. “He was with Delta Force, JSOC.”

“No,” Benny said. “It wasn't just intel you dumb fucking marine. It's...I can handle my fucking self, alright? Both of you need to just...calm your asses down. I promise you that I will be just fine.”

“You're a man of a many hats,” the Lieutenant said.

“I look good in them,” Benny replied. “Just keep that fucking kid alive, alright? I'll be back in contact with both of you. And don't pray for me,” he pointed firmly at Mena, “that's a defeatist fucking attitude.”

“I didn't say I was going to,” she returned archly.

“Rough, that's rough,” Benny returned. “Alright, I'm out of here. Don't get anymore nuns killed, marine.”

The Lieutenant winced like he'd been slapped. “Just don't get yourself killed. We need the intel you're getting us.”

“Aw, want a kiss goodbye, angel face?” Benny asked him.

The Lieutenant scoffed. “You get us some good fucking dirt on these men and I'll kiss you right on the mouth when you come back.”

“I'm holding you to that,” Benny returned, walking backwards down the aisle towards the font and the door. “Abbess? You and me,” he made a suggestive gesture as he continued to walk backwards in the near dark. “Huh? It's gonna happen. We'll have a threeway in the fucking bell tower. Think about it!”

“Don't think I haven't already,” Mena replied with a small, almost wicked gleam in her eyes.

Tripping a little by the font, Benny chuckled, catching himself, before turning and leaving.

In the silence of Benny's absence, the Lieutenant grinned a little at the nun beside him.

“What?” She demanded demurely as she turned back to face the front of the church.

“Nothing,”he replied.

“That man should get as good as he gives,” she said, shrugging her shoulders like a hen ruffling her feathers.

“You have a real dirty streak to you, Abbess,” he murmured, staring straight ahead.

It only took a moment, before a small, sad grin appeared on her face. “I used to,” she admitted. “I'm beginning to think the two of you bring out the worst in me.”

“Or maybe the best?” He suggested.

“Hmm.”

“Can I ask you something, Missy?” The Lieutenant asked.

“Hmm?”

“Can you really fight or do I need to force you to take lessons with the others tomorrow?” He asked. “I need to know everyone will be able to defend themselves the next time we get trouble.”

“I can handle myself,” Mena said. “I don't like the idea of fighting, but if it comes to it, I can handle myself just fine.”

“I don't mean to pry,” he went on. “But I'm going to need some credentials to back that claim up. I just...I don't want you to be the conscientious objector here and now.”

Mena was quiet for a minute, before gathering herself with a soft inhale. “When I was thirteen I ran away from home and lived on the streets of Atlanta for five years before the church took me in.”

Regretting asking, but a little more comforted by the information, the Lieutenant nodded. “Alright.”

“You're not going to ask any follow up questions?” Mena inquired with a small smirk.

“It's none of my business.”

“I'm not ashamed of it,” Mena replied. “We all do what we need to in order to survive.”

“I get it.”

“Anyways, I was freelance, if you could call it that. So if a man refused to pay, you'd better have a strong grip and get a good tip,” she went on. “Because there wasn't any pimp to come along and convince them to pay up.”

“Fair enough.” After a moment, he added. “I'm sorry you had to run away from home.”

“There are people out there worse off than me. I was lucky in that I used to go to the convent shelter in Atlanta, not this convent, it was another that would feed the homeless there and give them clothing and whatever they needed. I wasn't addicted to any drugs, I barely drank, though I did more than I should because...well, what else do you do when you're in that situation. But they recommended I join the church as a novitiate, it was Sister Mary Patrick who gave me my first instructions. She came here to this convent when I did and we have always been close.”

The Lieutenant didn't know what to say, so he remained silent. It wasn't his place to say anything.

“So, yes, Lieutenant, I can fight.”

He nodded.

“And no one will judge me, but God,” she added firmly.

“I won't judge you,” he said.

“If that day ever comes for us.” She added grimly.

“Go ahead, if you need,” he said. “I'm secular, so I won't judge.”

Mena opened her mouth as though to say something, but stopped suddenly, inhaling, almost as though she was stubbornly refusing to cry.

Wrapping his long fingers around her hand, he held it gently, warmly.

“I'm sorry,” she said again.

“You don't have to apologize,” he replied. “I imagine it would shake anyone to the core to have to be in this sort of situation. Civilians aren’t used to facing very real and dangerous threats, they aren’t prepared mentally for all the ugly parts that come with a disaster like this.”

She nodded. “It certainly makes you rethink a lot of things.”

“I'm not religious by any means, not really, but...well, how is your...you know? Your faith?” He winced as though faith was a dirty word.

“Honestly? I don’t know. I suppose I’m waiting for a sign.”

“A sign?” He asked.

“From God. What do we do now? I just don’t know.”

“Ooh,” he teased. “maybe his sign is the dead rising?”

Inhaling once more, Mena calmed herself, her hand still in his. “I am grateful for you, Lieutenant.” She said. “If you weren't here, if Mr. Malone wasn't here, I think it could have been worse for us last night. I have a hard time showing gratitude, and it's my weakness, I will work on it.”

“You don't have to be grateful,” the Lieutenant said. “You just trust me a little, yeah? I want this convent to flourish and be safe.”

“I think a lot of things need to change, don't they?” She asked.

He nodded.

“Maybe we'll turn completely secular,” she teased.

“You're joking, but...it'd make my job easier.”

“Your job?”

“Getting some nuns to kill some bad men.”

Mena laughed. “I don't know about that. But maybe we can make some room in the cloister for you and the others.”

“I don't know,” he teased, “that close to nuns, might make a man wish for the cold embrace of the Georgian backwoods.”

She clucked her tongue at him with a small grin.

In the dim church they sat for a good long while in silence, before the Lieutenant glanced at the woman beside him.

“You ever hear of 'telling the bees'?”

“Not that I'm aware of, what is it?”

“Used to be when someone in a house died, you'd go outside and down to the beehive and you'd tell the bees that they died. It was a sign of respect to the hardest workers on the farm.”

“What happened if you didn't tell the bees?”

The Lieutenant shrugged. “I dunno. They'd fly off, I guess? Or die? Or stop giving honey?”

“That sounds absolutely Pagan,” Mena replied finally.

He grinned. “Now I'm not proposing we dance around naked at the equinox or anything.”

“No reason to ruin a good time on my account,” Mena teased.

Chuckling, the Lieutenant squirmed again in the pew.

“Are you uncomfortable, Lieutenant?”

“No,” he lied.

She smiled. “They're not the friendliest seats, are they?”

“Ah, it's...churches make me a little nervous and I have to say this Catholic church is a little intimidating.”

“Is it the icons or the crucifix?”

“Well, Jesus dying on that cross doesn't give this place a...warm welcoming feel.”

“It's a stark reminder, but...I never cared much for him on the cross like that. I always thought we should remember Jesus as the man who fed the poor, healed the lepers, tolerated the downtrodden with grace and kindness. But then again, I'm just one nun with progressive ideas.”

“Is that why you're here? I recall you saying that this is where the diocese sent the troublemakers.”

Mena smiled. “I never thought of it like that, but perhaps. I know in my younger years I was very vocal about moving beyond the old ways of doing things in the church and mostly in the convent. I thought nuns were far, far removed from everything. I wanted us to get out into the world and be there for people who needed us. Homeless shelters, soup kitchens, they're wonderful, but we could be doing more. Building homes for the impoverished, protesting for civil liberties. Supporting a woman's body and woman's right to choose, it would prevent so much heartache and hardship, but...I'm not supposed to believe in things like abortion or birth control. The Catholic church doesn't believe in any of that, but...I mean a few years ago we didn't support homosexuality, but things were beginning to change and I thought we could push change. But...too many old men set in their ways in charge of too much, with too little desire to listen or even care.”

“I didn't know I was among Catholic rebels here,” the Lieutenant teased.

Mena smiled. “I suppose I was too worldly and I've seen too much to feel the way the church wanted me to. It was easier to shove me away, cloister me, cloister most of these nuns, here at a convent with little to no contact with the outside world, only going out to the farmer's market to sell goods to keep our lights on.”

“Mais,” the Lieutenant exhaled. “The world's gone to seed now, good time as any to forge a new one the way you want.”

“Do you want to know the most controversial idea I had before they sent me here?”

“What was it?”

“I thought priests and nuns should be allowed to marry.”

The Lieutenant faked a gasp. “Blasphemy!”

“As it was, I think – though they would never say it – I think priests and nuns believed that in order to be closer to God they had to rise above the people, but...isn't it logical to think that being closer to God is being among His creation? Experiencing it? All of it? Love and heartache and loss and birth?”

“I wouldn't know, I sort of gave up on God a while back. I think people should do what makes them happy as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else.”

“You're not what I'd imagine a military man would be. Especially a Lieutenant.”

He shrugged. “If you know what a military man looks like, I'd like to know. Wouldn't want to let people down at first sight.”

She laughed softly. “I guess...I was thinking the short, boxy haircut and maybe a ramrod straight spine.”

Reminded subtly to straighten his spine, the Lieutenant sat up in the pew and grinned. “Well, it's a start,” he replied at her look. “I suppose we're both bucking societal expectations of our roles. The progressive nun and the slouchy marine.”

“Hmm, I think I might say a quick prayer for Mr. Malone, then head to bed.”

“I thought he didn’t want you to,” the Lieutenant asked with a grin.

“I know,” she said firmly, the devil dancing in her eyes.

He nodded, releasing her hand. “I'll let you do that in peace then. I'm gonna hop on the wall before bed.”

“Do you think,” she stopped him at the aisle with her soft voice. “Do you think Mr. Malone will be okay out there alone?”

“The man survived this long in a fancy suit with a handgun and a small child, I think he knows what he's doing.”

She nodded. “That's good. I quite like him.”

The Lieutenant smirked. “Me too.”

“Goodnight, Lieutenant.”

“Goodnight, Missy.”

#novel #graveyard dirt & salt series #support a freelance small time author #go to my blog and donate if you can to my ko-fi #chapter 6

9 notes · View notes