You're Hoping For A Taste

We sit in the car in silence. We haven't been driving for long. Kellin, Jack and I are crammed into the back while two of our 'saviours' sit up front. The one who called up to us as we were sat on the roof is in the passenger seat, one arm leaning casually out the open window. If we had to stop and a Walker came stumbling out from the trees, he'd be the first one to get bitten. Yet he doesn't strike me as someone who's afraid of much. He looks like he's in his late twenties, but he could be younger or older; I'm pretty crap at gauging people's ages.

He twists in his seat to look at us, his smile illuminated by the soft glow of the rising sun. “Can I ask you something?” he says, looking at each of us in turn.

“Yeah, go ahead,” Kellin answers. He sounds tired.

“How come you guys had all those guns but didn't shoot any of them Walkers?” His voice has what I would guess to be a slight Southern twang, but as well as guessing ages I'm also terrible at guessing accents. I'll go with Southern. Why he's in Oregon though I've no idea.

“We didn't have enough ammo to take out those Walkers,” Jack replies. His brow is furrowed, and I can't tell if it's just because he's tired too or because he's a little uncomfortable. This a strange situation we've landed ourselves in. “We decided not to waste our bullets; they wouldn't have taken out the whole horde. We thought we'd wait instead.”

The man has been smiling this whole time, just smiling. His eyes are bright, alive, calculating. He unnerves me. He seems like the kind of person to have a screw loose. “Fair enough,” he says. “I'm Jared, just so you know.”

“Jack.”

“Kellin.”

“Alexa.” Jared holds eye contact with me a bit longer than I'd like. It's only when he turns back to the front that I realise I was tensing my shoulders. I relax into the seat. Kellin glances at me. He just stares, holding my gaze, and the look is reminiscent of the Kellin I found all those days ago, the Kellin who dragged me into his basement hideout. I don't like it. He looks away.

I turn in my seat to peer out the back window. A trail of cars follows us, our saviours' vehicles and our own three cars at the back. Only we're not driving them, they are. I know Gabe, Jesse and Justin are in the car behind us, but I can't see them in the dim dawn light. When we managed to get off that roof in one piece, all our belongings safely passed down to the others, Jared had said that him and his ragtag group of zombie slayers would take us to their 'commune' where we could rest and then be on our way. First off, the word 'commune' got me feeling a bit odd. Two things sprung to mind: hippies and sects. I'm fine with hippies, but these people don't seem like the peace-loving type. I learnt all about sects in my Sociology A-Level at sixth form. The one that stuck out for me was 'People's Temple', a religious sect that had its own kind of commune. Only they all committed suicide there. That's why I felt a bit uneasy about going with these people. They saved us and all, but nowadays you can't be so naïve as to think that everyone's intentions are good.

After a while, Jared pipes up again. “I think you guys will like it here. The commune is good. I s'pose it'll be a bit of a shock to you seeing so many survivors. It's all Isaac's work.”

“Who's Isaac?” Kellin asks. The wind rushing through the car from the open window whips his dark hair back and forth.

“He's our leader,” Jared says, throwing a smile over his shoulder.

I widen my eyes, and Kellin catches my gaze again. A bit of colour is coming back to his face. I hope this means he's coming back to me.

Jack leans slightly towards us and mouths, “What the fuck?”

Kellin shakes his head slowly, eyes big and round.

I'm beginning to like this even less.

The car slows and turns onto a dirt track. It bumps along for a short while before a chain-link fence springs into view. The car stops, and two guards with rifles stride forward to stand on either side.

The one on Jared's side peers into the car. “What's up, Jared?”

“Survivors,” he answers, jerking his thumb at us. “We got another three in the vehicle behind. The last three vehicles in the line are theirs.”

The guards chews on his gum like a cow chewing cud. He stares at us for a few more seconds before slapping the window frame twice and saying, “Alright, go on in. I'll call Isaac, go straight to him.”

“Sure thing,” Jared answers.

The guards move away from the car and open up the gate to the commune. We roll forward and stop in the makeshift car park they've created. Jared gets out and gestures for us to do the same, flashing us another one of his sickly smiles.

Kellin, Jack and I exchange another wary look and clamber out. The place is quiet, but I can hear voices not too far away. It's early, so the majority of the people in the commune must not be awake yet.

I stick close to Kellin's side as we follow Jared past the row of cars. I glance back to see Gabe, Jesse and Justin not too far behind. Gabe meets my eye, but I can't read his expression.

Ahead of us the space opens up, the fence curving away and disappearing from view. In front of us sprawls a camp, large cloth tents, held up by specially cut branches, littering the woodland. This really is a commune. Not a single modern tent in sight. It's like stepping back in time, or at least stepping back into Guides camp when we had to build our own tents.

Jared leads the way deeper into the commune. We don't see many people, but occasionally a head will pop between the cloth entrance of a tent and stare curiously at us. I can feel my heart begin to beat a little faster.

I can see where we're heading: a tent larger than the others and clearly the centre of the commune. All the tents seem to extend out in misshapen circles from this one. As we near it, my heart quickens its pace even more. A hand slips into mine, callused yet comfortingly warm. I look at Kellin and he smiles, squeezing my hand. I smile back, but it wavers a little.

When we stop outside the tent, a girl scurries to meet us. Her hair is a wispy blonde. “Hi Jared,” she says, smiling sweetly at him.

“Olivia,” he answers, “good timing. Isaac wants to speak with these guys, would you mind taking the girl... Alexa, was it? Yeah, could you take Alexa to the spare tent they'll all be staying in for now?”

“Sure,” she says, sounding way too chipper for this early hour.

But why am I going somewhere different? I throw Jared a confused look and, seeing it, he smiles in answer. “It's nothing to worry about,” he explains, “I just thought you'd need your rest more than your friends. They can fill you in when they've finished speaking with Isaac. Really, Alexa, you deserve a rest.” He reaches out and places a hand on my shoulder, nodding at me like some patronising old man. The stubble can't fool me; he's nothing more than a boy playing dress-up as his dad. I want to shrug his hand off, and I feel Kellin stiffen beside me. But I don't have the heart to argue.

Jared drops his hand, and I look to the girl. She grins at me and says, “Come with me.”

I really don't want to leave the guys. Not at all. I want to stay with them. But Jared is staring me down like he's daring me to question him. His eyes are intense, and I feel my resolve crumble. Reluctantly, I follow Olivia, yet not before I catch the concerned look on Kellin's face. He's not liking this, and nor am I.

My hand feels empty without his there.

Olivia, chatters on about how nice it'll be for me to have a bed to sleep in, and how she'll get me some food and drink when I wake up, and how lovely the commune is. I smile at her and nod along, but it all feels hollow. I want to know what that Isaac bloke is saying to the guys.

Olivia drops me off at a pale green tent. Inside are six rickety camp beds. I'd love to hang around and find out where they got all this stuff, but as soon as Olivia disappears off somewhere I'm poking my head out of the tent and checking to see if anyone's around. I've made up my mind. Thank god it's just after dawn; everyone is still asleep mostly.

I hurry out of the tent, frantically looking left and right, ahead and behind, as I try and keep my footsteps as quiet as possible. We pretty much walked in a straight line from Isaac's tent to the other tent, so I find my way back easily. I slow down as I near it, peering round the edge of another tent to check that Jared isn't hanging around. All clear.

I move closer, creeping to the edge of the tent. There's no cover, so I settle for just crouching beside it; I can always leap behind an adjacent tent if I hear someone coming. As long as I don't get caught before I've heard what Isaac has to say, I'll be fine. I can just play innocent anyway and say I was trying to find the toilets or something silly like that.

It's hard to focus on the voices at first as they're a bit muffled, but one thick voice seems to be the only one talking. It must be Isaac. “-now I believe as the last humans left alive we have a mission, and that mission is to repopulate the earth. That is God's will. So, as you can see, our women are very special to us. As God's missionaries, we need to impregnate our women and build up the population; that's the only way we're gonna get through this.”

“Impregnate?” Jack repeats.

“What?” Justin calls out.

“Are you insane?” Gabe adds.

And then Kellin, louder. “Are you on crack?”

Isaac chuckles, seemingly amused by Kellin's comment, but the laugh sounds a little strained. “I'm telling you boys that if you want to survive then this is what you need to do. The army is long gone, so's the government. It's just us now, and we have to do what God wants us to, and that is continue the population no matter what.”

“And God told you this himself?” Jesse asks, clearly stifling a laugh, but it's a laugh of disbelief.

“Yes, he did.”

“Oh, right, that's okay then, we'll just take your word for it,” Jesse snaps.

There's the sound of movement, and then Isaac is calling, “And where do you think you're going, young man?”

“To find a girl to rape,” Kellin spits.

“Now just wait a minute,” Isaac answers more forcefully. I'd be surprised that he's telling all this outright, but this isn't a normal society; there isn't even a society any more. Isaac must truly believe he's created the perfect community carrying out 'God's work'. And just like any good sect leader, he's deluded yet articulate. “This isn't rape-”

“You're a sick fuck, you know that?” I can hear that Kellin's anger is barely controlled, his words sharp. “You're talking about women like they're just baby-making machines. What you're suggesting is rape because you're not giving them a choice in the matter.”

“It's God's will, you cannot deny it. You're either with us or against us, boys.”

“So what are you suggesting?” Jack chips in. “We stay or you kill us? You won't just let us go on our way? We're meant to be meeting friends.”

“We need as many people as we can find if we have any chance of increasing our numbers-”

“Wow,” Kellin says, cutting Isaac off again, “you really are on crack.”

I hear the rustle of the entrance to the tent being thrown aside and Kellin storms into view. He looks left, right, then spins around. He catches sight of me, crouched beside the tent, yet the look of pure red rage doesn't fade from his face. He strides over and roughly grabs my hand, tugging me to my feet. Inside the tent, I hear the others going wild at Isaac, and in the midst of it the tell-tale crackle of walkie-talkie static and Isaac's calm voice saying, “Jared, we have a situation.” He doesn't elaborate. I guess we're not the first ones to disagree with Isaac's plans. I wonder if those people are still here, grudgingly living out their life, or shot dead in a ditch somewhere.

“Where are we going?” I ask Kellin as he drags me along. My mind is reeling from everything I've just heard.

“Away from here,” he says. He stops abruptly and whirls round to look me dead in the eye. His gaze is determined and a little wild. “I won't let them have you.”