Chedderfield

Chedderfield raised his hand to shield his eyes from the blistering sun that had traveled past its zenith. Despite the many hours left in the day, for Chedderfield, who had just gone through hell, it felt like the day was already over as he walked with his group and the Australians down the street just outside of the zoo.

Exhausted, he and Archimedes walked down the street, both on high alert for any danger, their eyes darting in the direction of every little movement. “I just need a cerveza, some ground-beef-and-hot-sauce-covered nachos, and a recliner to sit in while I watch TV,” Chedderfield grumbled.

Archimedes shrugged. “I don’t think I’ve watched TV in a decade, but give me one of those beers and let me have those nachos, and I’ll be more than happy to sit in front of the idiot box with you.”

“Idiot box? What? You don’t watch TV? You don’t play games? What do you even do at night for fun?” Chedderfield asked, half teasing his friend for not enjoying the basics, half curious about how his friend had been holding up since they parted ways.

“If he’s not working? He’s . . . well. Did you ever take breaks, Arc?” Lucy asked.

“Yeah. Poker night was usually on Tuesday, and there was that standup club you used to drag me to every Saturday. Those are breaks, right?” Archimedes answered a bit defensively.

“Arc, you should have taken more time off,” Danielle remarked, interjecting herself into the conversation. “Do you know how many amazing shows, movies, and webcomics you probably missed out on?”

“I sort of had a family to take care of though . . .” Archimedes started with a frown.

Chedderfield couldn’t restrain his shock from the sudden reveal. “What? You have a family, and you aren’t with them right now?!”

“Arc, how did you hide your family from Lucy in the age of the Internet and social media?” Nguyen asked jokingly with a laugh. “I knew a guy that tried that but had his dad expose his four other families when he mis-tagged himself in a photo.”

“No, no, relax. That’s just what he calls his little company. He took that corporate seminar crap about ‘we’re all family here’ way too seriously,” Lucy quickly explained.

“Spend all day working with people six days a week, and it’s hard not to think of them as family,” Archimedes said.

“So what about the seventh day?” Chedderfield asked. “You had to have watched some television. Maybe those new superhero shows? Maybe the shows where people make weird crap out of cake? Come on, Arc. What was your poison?”

“Actually, that’s a good point. What did you do on Sunday?” Lucy asked. “You always left the comedy club Saturday sober enough that it couldn’t have wiped out your whole day Sunday.”

“I gotta know too, Arc,” Nguyen insisted. “What was it? You know all about who we were before the apocalypse. I loved nature stuff, especially aquariums. Lucy drank all the time, practiced her comedy routine, or ran on the field. Danielle was obsessed with sci-fi. Chedderfield liked reality TV and sci-fi stuff, and Emma . . . is too young to count as a person. But what about the great mystery that is Archimedes?”

“This ‘too young to count as a person’ person would like to note she used to love watching anime and talk shows,” Emma voiced.

Archimedes sighed. “Well . . . if I had to be honest, every Sunday I would—”

“Lawyer shows for me,” Asim said, barging into the conversation and drawing a scornful eye from the rest of the group, having interrupted the reveal. “Look. Sorry ‘bout that. You guys seemed really keen on carrying on, but we’re kinda already free from harm.”

“Huh?” Archimedes blinked in confusion as Chedderfield and the others turned.

“We’d love to stay mates,” Bicky added. “But we really do need to be finding a place to patch up our wounded and bunker down.”

“Well, speaking of bunkers, there might be a few around here unused,” Emma said, pointing over to the row of houses above the bunker they had come across earlier. “We came out of one in that direction. They might know where one is that you can use.”

“Really?” Asim’s eyes perked up. “You don’t reckon they’d mind?”

“Nah, they were good people,” Chedderfield remarked. “You should just be sure to talk to the mom, not the dad.”

Asim nodded. “Right, right. Then we’ll do that. If they end up having a bunker we can use, we’ll paint a yellow line on the grass above it so you can find us.”

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

The fact that Chedderfield would need to ‘find them’ really struck him as something odd. It made him realize exactly how transient relationships had begun to feel since the apocalypse. He hadn’t even considered visiting his brother again, something that ate at him the moment he reflected about it.

Bicky raised her hand. “Oh, one other thing: You guys might not know this . . . but we saw a ton of zombies marching out of the base before you lot began the fight in the pit. They were heading northwest like a full army battalion.”

“That’s what the conscriptor mentioned before the battle too, that they had to send all the zombies out for something,” Emma said. “He kept talking to his elephant about how frustrating it was to have to send so many troops off.”

“How many do you mean when you say battalion?” Archimedes pressed.

“I don’t know. Like five hundred? Maybe a thousand?” Bicky shrugged. “Enough that we were happy not to have to fight them if you know what I mean.”

“Where do you think they were going?” Chedderfield wondered aloud. “You all said northwest, but . . . what’s northwest of us?”

“I don’t know, but I’m reporting it either way the moment we get back to our communications hub,” Asim stated. “I bet the information will be worth something to someone.”

This piqued Chedderfield’s attention. “You can sell information at the hub?”

“Well, yeah, of course you can. What’s more valuable than information? Though you gotta be careful, mate. If you’re gonna sell even a single piece of information, you need to have a good reputation. Sell small pieces first and build your rep up before you sell anything of value, or no one will be willing to pay the price for the valuable stuff because they won’t trust you,” Asim explained.

Chedderfield nodded. “That . . . makes sense.”

“Sounds like you did some online vendoring before the apocalypse,” Nguyen pointed out.

“Course I did! You know how much crap our team would get from crazy fans? Had to sell it somewhere. If we didn’t, we’d have had to open up a thousand storage facilities just to keep it,” Asim replied with a laugh.

“You did keep a lot of the candy though, coach,” Hugh noted.

“Yeah, that was my first time ever getting candy on Valentine’s Day. Why’d you steal it, coach?” Jack said with a fake look of hurt.

“Because you were adding on pounds like a British banker,” Asim shot back, only to have Jack turn his head like he didn’t hear what had been said.

“Anyway, enough chat here,” Asim said. “We have to be running, but if you all figure out what that zombie group was up to, post to the boards for us. We’ll reply.”

“How do you know it’ll be us posting?” Archimedes asked. “I mean, what if we use our group name for the account?”

Asim shrugged. “If you follow my advice and use your real names, I’ll know. Don’t ignore the advice of those who have already done something successfully.”

Emma shook her head. “Oh my god, old people talk so weird.”

Bicky looked over at Emma quizzically. “Aren’t you as old as we are?”

“What? No way. You people are at least fifteen years older than me! You're like old old. Like ‘refinancing the mortgage on your home after your husband leaves you for an intern’ old.”

“Nah, yeah, I'm so sorry. I just thought, with how you looked, that we were the same age, and—” Bicky covered her mouth with mocking wide eyes. Emma gaped like she’d been slapped but Bicky continued, “Nevermind. I won’t say anything more. I won’t mention it at all.”

“Hey?! What’s that supposed to mean?! Old lady, you can’t just— HEY!” Emma shouted out after Bicky, but Bicky just turned her head and ignored the kid.

“It’s okay, please ignore our poor child,” Lucy said as she grabbed Emma before she could go over to Bicky. Lucy laughed the entire time. “Kid, you gotta learn to take it if you’re gonna try to dish it out.”

“Fact,” Bicky agreed with a nod as everyone had a chuckle at Emma’s expense. Seeing Emma’s face red from the embarrassment almost made Chedderfield feel bad for her. Almost. He was just too familiar with her jabs after having escorted her from Talboit’s base to have any sympathy for her.

“We’re leaving before you start another fight with a group we could be allies with, Bicky!” Asim said, pulling on Bicky’s arm. He turned to the rest of the group and waved as he continued, “Just remember the advice. We’d be happy to compete with you folks again.” With a call to the rest of the Australians, Asim and the rugby team turned west toward the bunker.

“So now that they’re gone, what’s the game plan?” Lucy asked once the Australians were out of earshot. “We gonna chase after the zombies?”

“I’d like to. I’m scared of what they’re doing. But we need to deliver these and the cores back to the base and make sure Chip and the rest are still safe,” Archimedes said as he looked back at their carts. “Once we drop this off though, we can collect our rewards, and then . . . I think we need to check on those zombies. I don’t like them organizing in large numbers like that. What if they’re trying to build another damn portal or something?”

Danielle tilted her head curiously and asked, “Yeah, why didn’t they stay and fight? I mean, with that many monsters to fight against, I don’t think we would have been able to destroy that base.”

“You’re missing the fact that we also need to upgrade one of our bases,” Chedderfield said as he pulled out cores. “‘Cause we got the loot!”

“Loot, ey? It’s so nice that you’ve finally started to use the proper gamer terms,” Lucy said. “Now we just need you to start talking about the meta and how to min-max your stats when you’re—”

“Wait, min-maxing stats?” Archimedes interrupted. “Lucy, aren’t your stats more spread out than cream cheese on a bagel?”

“Says the guy who enjoyed my spread plenty last night," Lucy shot back.

“Oh my god! You guys talk way the hell too much for people that nearly died multiple times today. Can we talk and move? I know it’s a challenge for some people, but I think we can do it,” Nguyen blurted out in an exasperated tone as she started to walk ahead.

“So back to the base then?” Danielle asked as she reached out and grabbed Chedderfield’s hand.

“As long as I don’t have to hear about Lucy getting spread like butter on a biscuit,” Chedderfield answered, siding with Nguyen.

“But wait, what did Archimedes do on Sundays?” Emma mumbled to herself. The group, having reached a comfortable lull of silence, walked ahead without responding to her question.