That woke Patty up. “You can’t. You can’t possibly manage five kids…”
“I can and I will.” Her face was getting warm but she anchored the smile. “Watch me. I’m making this shit happen. I’ll be goddamned if I’m gonna stay here and rot—”
“Sarah’s too little, leave her—” and then Sue stopped hearing. She must have been hyperventilating, because her head felt hot but her mouth felt cold. She ran her fingers through her hair and left the room, went for the stairs. She looked down into the main warehouse area, fully lit now by the afternoon sun through the skylights.
Wayne was downstairs. How did he get here so quietly? She didn’t see a Jeep. He was already talking with Seth, who had on his stained pink shirt and striped tie, like he was still middle management.
Sue ran down the rattling iron stairs.
“…both of them,” Wayne was saying.
Seth nodded gravely and looked up at Sue. She had her mouth open but something in Wayne’s eyes told her to shut it.
“Bad news, Sue: Zach and Ted are dead. Call everyone around.”
The manager’s office bathroom was the only real private room in the warehouse. That’s where Sue waited for Wayne after the meeting, drinking a long-hoarded Abita beer, playing with the candles on the rust-stained toilet that could no longer be used, fixing herself up as best she could in the mirror. Finally, he came in.
“What happened out there? Where’s the Jeep?”
“Shh,” he said.
“They tried to kill you, didn’t they? Why didn’t you tell Seth?”
“I…not really. Maybe they were going to.”
“Maybe? What did Seth say? Will they come?”
“I didn’t put it to them, I don’t think that’s wise.” Wayne put his hand on the wall behind Sue.
“What, we’re just going? Just us, no caravan?”
He dropped his arm. “Seth can’t be trusted.”
She stamped her foot. “How are we going to make it anywhere without that kind of backup, Wayne?”
“Do you hear me? I don’t trust Seth anymore. I don’t think Zach and Ted were acting alone. I think it came from higher up.”
Sue leaned back against the wall. “They did try to kill you.”
“Well, they didn’t get a chance.”
“The dead got them first.”
“I got…you know, I went ahead and shot them.”
“Oh, Christ.”
“I was scared, I kept thinking about the plan, I don’t even know if we were right anymore. I panicked.”
“Shh, it’s okay.” She put a hand on his chest. “You were right, you were right, just like we planned, just a little different. And it’s good you told Seth and all that they were killed by the dead, that’s fine cover, you did good.”
“I don’t know…I worry that they, that Ted or Zach, might…”
“What?”
“Might wander back here, I don’t know. I can’t stop thinking about it.”
“You didn’t finish them?”
“I don’t know!”
“Christ, Wayne. You’re unbelievable, that could really be—”
“Shut…just, be quiet. Listen.” He held her wrists to her chest but she didn’t like the maneuver and pushed back away from him. “Go talk to Patty, get the kids’ stuff ready so we can go. I’ll talk to Ian.”
“Ugh. Where’s the Jeep, anyway? How are we leaving?”
“It’s four blocks from here, loaded up with MREs and water.” Her eyes went wide. “Don’t freak out, just get the shit ready, tell Patty so we can go.”
“We’ll have to walk?”
“A little ways, yes. It’s no real problem.”
She swallowed then, leaned against his chest and whispered, “Can we just go now, forget the kids?”
“No. The kids.” Now he pushed her away. “The kids are half the damn point, Sue.”
“What do you care. You don’t even know their names,” she said. “Patty’s not coming.”
He sighed. “Whatever. Just get everything together, keep it quiet, don’t spook anyone. Give me that beer. We’re leaving at daybreak. Get some sleep.”
She left the bathroom and headed upstairs, shaking and wondering if she could sleep: tomorrow would start no better than today had. In the classroom/orphan bedroom, she stepped over the mattresses in the dark and just grabbed clothes from unwashed piles as she passed, stuffing them into a backpack, trying to get things for the ones she’d decided on but just not entirely sure, in the dark, with this pitiful flashlight. Children slept like the dead. Patty was asleep on the floor. Devon breathed and it sounded like a greasy drain gurgling. The shoes: she had to be sure of the shoes. She put the correct pair next to each child’s head. Morgan, Leticia, Greg, Shawn, Sarah. These were the ones; she could help these ones.
Sue had just fallen asleep when Wayne woke her up to say the dead had found the warehouse.