Tooth and Nail (Draft In Progress - Book One)

Chapter 11 - Haven Under Siege

Day 11

By morning, Drew had not returned. Avery wasn't concerned, but Allen and Jezebel were. Tamerlyn was still as uncaring as she had been the night before, and was sitting at the table with a bowl of Cheerios going stale. The radio had gone silent around two that morning, and she had fallen asleep with the microphone in her hand. Sunlight fought to pour in through the tightly sealed drapes, casting a dark yellow-gold color across the living room, and barley spilling into the kitchen, reaching across the even darker brown wooden floor. The refrigerator didn't hum, the fan didn't tick, the walls didn't creak, shifting weight of the house, settling further down. In her mind, Tamerlyn imagined Haven after twenty years of staying tightly sealed. They would be in their thirties, if they were still alive, lying on the couch, too tired and weak and poorly fed to do anything but sleep and shift in their skins, propped against one another, dying romantics. She shook her head, an etch-a-sketch clearing away the horrid picture. She looked at her bowl of Cheerios, looking too depressed for its name, and wishing that she, as children more than seventy years ago, could get her go.

And she did, when she heard a break in the static hum coasting through the house on the limited breeze from the vents and living room fan.

Hello.

Hello?

Anyone?

She tore though the house, bumping her hip - hard - on the silestone countertop corners crossing diagonally through the kitchen, cutting the long way around through the hardwood hallways, straight into Connor's hallway wing and bedroom.

The door was closed, and she slammed into it with intense speed and force before realizing she couldn't just push it open, costing her two mental seconds to backtrack and turn the door handle and stumble into the room, her feet moving too fast for her common sense to let them know that the door wasn't yet open wide enough for sprinting through.

But it didn't slow her down. She righted quickly and sprung onto the Captain's Bed, almost landing on the CB set and ending any chances of further communication. Again, a voice came through, scratchy and tired and desperate.

Hello? Please...

Tamerlyn scooped up the mic from the bed spread surface, catching her finger in a blanket loop and lifting the whole cover up with the piece in her hand. "Yes, I'm here, I'm here, who is this?"

Almost instantly, she heard back, "Hello! Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, you can hear me!" The voice laughed, exasperated and obviously worn out. It sounded familiar to her, but it was distorted and broken through the static, so she dismissed the remnant memory as wishful thinking. "My name is Alani and I'm from Hutto!"

She smiled and let out a laughing sigh, "Hello Alani! My name is Tamerlyn, from the Bubble. How can I help you today?"

"Oh my Sweet Moses, are you really Tamerlyn?" Alani yelled into the receiver. Tamerlyn recoiled and brought her shoulders up to cover her ears the little they could. The speaker shrieked a high-pitched feedback sound for a moment, then Tamerlyn relaxed again, a look of dreaded seriousness and confusion about her.

She hesitated, clicking the 'talk' button a few times before actually opening her lips to speak. "Yes, this is she, the one and only." Her raven hair fell in front of her face, oily and curling at the tips. "How can I help you?"

Alani spoke more clearly this time, a subtle tone change to indicate urgency. "Well, there's been a lot of talk from the Red River gang that Haven is their next target." The speaker clicked off and Tamerlyn felt it to the bone. A jolt of finality. "I just thought you should know." Static returned to the space, no active CBs anywhere to interrupt the steady and now comforting sound of the loudest kind of silence. A raiding party from Red River? Coming to Haven? There was a reason they were called Red River, and it wasn't because of sunset. The river ran red with the blood of not only the Walkers, but the humans that the gangs attacked, viciously ready to slaughter anyone who stood between them and their much needed supplies.