Chapter 166: Galloway [3]

"How about you just slap him instead of wasting your breath on him next time?"

A voice called from behind her.

Margaret turned around, her expression immediately softening from weary disappointment into something warmer.

"Rebecca," she said with a gentle smile.

Rebecca stood a few feet away with her arms crossed.

"I’m serious," Rebecca continued. "That guy is a complete ass, and he’s only going to get worse if you keep trying to reason with him like he’s capable of rational thought."

Margaret’s smile widened slightly but she shook her head.

"Violence rarely solves problems," Margaret replied. "And as community leader, I need to maintain standards even when others don’t."

"Standards won’t mean much if Brad convinces enough people to split off or stage some kind of leadership challenge," Rebecca pointed out. "I’ve been listening to the grumbling. He’s got more support than you might think—people are scared and looking for someone who promises easy answers and aggressive action even if those promises are bullshit."

Margaret nodded slowly.

"I know," Margaret admitted quietly. "But abandoning our principles—abandoning each other when things get difficult—that’s how we lose our humanity entirely. If we start treating the weak as expendable, what separates us from the infected or these aliens who caused this apocalypse?"

"That guy doesn’t need any compassion," Rebecca said flatly.

Margaret chuckled softly. "Are you still angry because of how he acted inappropriately with Rachel?" She paused, her expression shifting to something more serious as she studied Rebecca’s face. "I already spoke with Brad about his behavior, made it very clear it was unacceptable. But does he still continue to bother her? Has there been any new incidents I should know about?"

Margaret knew all too well about Brad’s persistent, unwanted advances toward Rachel—how he’d been forcing his attention on her despite her complete lack of interest, trying to pressure her into some kind of relationship through sheer aggressive persistence. The situation had been quite problematic before Jackson Township’s fall, creating tension within the community that Margaret had struggled to manage diplomatically.

It was behavior that went beyond mere awkwardness or misreading social cues. Brad’s approach had been deliberately pushy, borderline predatory in how he’d refused to accept Rachel’s clear rejections. Ryan, Rebecca, and even Christopher had all warned Brad about his conduct in increasingly direct terms, but the man hadn’t seemed to care about boundaries or respect for most of that time.

Though recently, Margaret had noticed the harassment had diminished considerably. Perhaps Brad had finally understood—through whatever combination of warnings, threats, or personal revelation—that he needed to leave Rachel alone. Or perhaps he’d simply found new targets for his aggressive personality now that larger survival concerns dominated everyone’s attention.

"No, it’s not necessary to intervene further," Rebecca replied shrugging "He understood pretty clearly that he’ll get his ass thoroughly kicked if he tries to bother my sister again. I made sure of that, and so did...him."

Margaret laughed and she reached out and gently patted Rebecca’s hair with maternal affection, her hand lingering for a moment as she looked at the younger girl softly.

The gesture carried weight beyond simple friendliness. Unfortunately, Margaret’s own son had left Jackson Township many years ago—she could barely remember exactly when now, the years blurring together—and he’d never bothered to maintain contact with her afterward. She’d briefly heard through mutual acquaintances that he’d gotten married to a woman she’d never met, that they’d had two children together—a boy and a girl, supposedly—but he’d never bothered coming back to visit or even calling to introduce his family.

Margaret had never seen her grandchildren. Didn’t know their names, their ages, what they looked like, whether they’d inherited family traits or developed entirely new characteristics. They existed only as abstractions—theoretical relatives she had no connection with beyond blood she’d never actually witnessed.

Each time Margaret saw Rebecca—sharp-tongued but fundamentally good-hearted, fiercely protective of her sister, capable of both cutting sarcasm and genuine kindness—she couldn’t help but wonder if her granddaughter might have grown up to be similar. Would she have had Rebecca’s quick wit and fierce loyalty? Would she have been the type to stand up against bullies like Brad regardless of personal risk? Would she have inherited her grandmother’s diplomatic tendencies or rejected them in favor of more direct confrontation?

Margaret would never know the answers to those questions. Her son had made his choice to cut ties years ago, and now with the apocalypse transforming the world, she couldn’t determine whether he and her grandchildren were alive and well somewhere—possibly surviving in another community, possibly even thriving if they’d been lucky with location and resources—or whether they’d already been transformed into infected, their consciousness erased and replaced with mindless hunger.

The uncertainty was its own special kind of torture. At least with confirmed deaths, you could grieve and eventually find some kind of closure. But with missing people whose fate remained unknown, you were trapped in perpetual limbo—unable to properly mourn, unable to maintain hope without torturing yourself with impossible fantasies.

"It’s fine," Margaret said finally, gently withdrawing her hand and forcing her thoughts back to present concerns. "Just don’t get yourself into serious trouble with Brad, Rebecca. I worry about direct confrontations escalating beyond verbal sparring."

She was genuinely concerned that Rebecca might directly insult Brad in ways that pushed past his already limited tolerance for disrespect. The man had demonstrated he possessed a dangerously short temper, and Margaret couldn’t entirely dismiss the possibility that Brad might raise his hand against Rebecca if she provoked him sufficiently—especially if the confrontation occurred without witnesses or people positioned to immediately intervene.

"What? I’m not scared of that guy," Rebecca said.

Margaret smiled despite her concerns, recognizing that Rebecca’s courage—while admirable—might lead her into dangerous situations she was unprepared to handle. But attempting to make her more cautious was likely futile. Some people were simply wired to confront threats directly rather than avoid or deflect them.

"I know, I know," Margaret said with gentle resignation. "Now, where is your sister? I haven’t seen Rachel in the past hour or so."

"She’s still checking houses around the perimeter," Rebecca replied, turning slightly to gesture vaguely toward the surrounding residential area. "

They were currently positioned in what had once been a typical American suburban street—the kind of neighborhood that existed in countless towns across the country with only minor variations in architectural style and landscaping choices. Houses lined both sides of the road in neat rows, each with their small front yards and driveways, most with two-car garages and modest porches.

Or at least, they’d once been neat. Now many homes showed signs of abandonment or violence: doors hanging open on broken hinges, windows shattered with glass glittering on lawns that had grown wild and unkempt, vehicles in driveways with doors left open suggesting their owners had fled in panic without time to secure property they’d never return to.

The convoy’s vehicles—personal cars, bus, and Ryan’s camping van—filled the center of the road in a defensive formation that allowed quick evacuation if infected appeared in overwhelming numbers. The Municipal Office community had spread out around the vehicles, most people staying outside despite the light rain because the enclosed spaces of cars felt claustrophobic after hours of travel.

People spoke in hushed tones, their conversations punctuated by nervous glances toward surrounding buildings and side streets. Everyone carried the hypervigilant wariness of prey animals in predator territory, constantly alert for infected who might come barging out from any shadow or doorway.

Though thankfully, infected encounters had been minimal so far in Galloway Township. Some would indeed occasionally emerge—drawn by noise or movement or whatever mysterious senses guided them—but they were swiftly dealt with by the community’s armed men who’d developed efficient protocols for eliminating stragglers without alerting larger hordes.

After facing the massive crowds of infected brought by the Screamer’s calls at Jackson Township—thousands of shambling bodies converging from every direction in an unstoppable tide—even a dozen infected scattered across a neighborhood didn’t seem particularly scary anymore. Trauma had recalibrated everyone’s threat assessment scales; what would have been terrifying before the Screamer’s attack now registered as merely routine danger requiring standard precautions.

"Kya!"

The sharp cry cut through the ambient conversation, immediately drawing attention from everyone within earshot. Rebecca turned around reflexively, and as expected, she saw a familiar figure who had stumbled and fallen to her knees after losing her grip on a cardboard box of supplies.

Daisy knelt on the wet pavement surrounded by scattered cans and packaged foods that had tumbled from her dropped box, her hands braced against the ground to prevent face-planting completely. Even from a distance, Rebecca could see the young woman’s shoulders hunched with embarrassment at having drawn attention to herself yet again.

Rebecca approached with quick strides, her expression mixing exasperation with concern. "How many times are you going to fall like this, Daisy?" She asked. "This is what—the fourth time today? Fifth?"

This was clearly not the first such incident, after all. Daisy had been struggling with clumsiness throughout their journey, repeatedly dropping things or tripping over obstacles that others navigated without difficulty. Her poor vision—corrected only partially by glasses that were themselves damaged—made her prone to misjudging distances and missing hazards until she was already stumbling over them.

"I...I’m sorry, I just wanted to help carry supplies," Daisy said apologetically as she raised her head to look at Rebecca. "I didn’t mean to drop everything. I thought I had a good grip on the box, but it was heavier than I expected and I couldn’t see the uneven pavement because of the rain, and then I just..."

She trailed off, her explanation dissolving into embarrassed silence as she realized she was rambling.

Rebecca’s gaze sharpened as she noticed something she’d missed from a distance. "Your glasses—the left lens is cracked now," she observed, leaning closer to examine the damage. The spectacle lens showed a spider-web pattern of fracture lines radiating from an impact point, severely compromising Daisy’s already limited vision correction. "Don’t you have a spare pair, or is this the only one you’ve got?"

Daisy just lowered her head without answering.

Without further complaint, Rebecca knelt down and began helping Daisy gather the scattered supplies, collecting cans and packages that had rolled across the wet pavement. Rain continued falling lightly, making everything slippery and harder to grip, but they worked efficiently together to recover what they could.

"How about you ask Ryan to help you?" Rebecca suggested once they’d retrieved most of the spilled items and were restacking them in the box. "With your vision problem, I mean. He might be able to fix it."

"Help? What do you mean?" Daisy raised her gaze, genuinely puzzled by the suggestion. Her cracked glasses magnified one eye strangely while the other appeared normal-sized, creating an unsettling asymmetry that made Rebecca uncomfortable to look at directly.

"I don’t know exactly how it works—the biological mechanics are beyond me," Rebecca admitted with characteristic bluntness. "But my sister Rachel, Sydney, and Cindy have all been infected somewhat by Ryan’s power, right? They contracted the virus in controlled circumstances and it transformed them, gave them enhanced abilities. And from what they’ve all told me, one of the side effects was that their vision improved dramatically—like, perfect 20/20 or even better. Maybe superhuman visual acuity."

She paused, studying Daisy’s reaction before continuing. "Rachel used to need reading glasses for small print and now she doesn’t even need them she told me. So maybe you could get healed from your vision issues too? That virus seems to optimize the host body, fixing various defects and impairments as part of the overall enhancement process."

"Umm...I don’t know about that," Daisy said thoughtfully, her brow furrowing as she considered the suggestion. Her fingers unconsciously touched her cracked glasses, tracing the fracture lines. "But I really don’t want to bother Ryan with my problems. He’s dealing with so much already—Jasmine’s death, Elena and Alisha being taken away, all the stress of keeping everyone safe during travel. My vision issues seem trivial in comparison."

Since that terrible night—Jasmine’s death and Elena leaving along with Alisha, both losses occurring within hours and devastating Ryan completely—Daisy had barely exchanged words with him beyond basic greetings. She’d been deliberately keeping her distance, not wanting to bother him with trivial concerns while he was clearly struggling to process trauma that would have broken most people entirely.

"You’re worrying too much about nothing," Rebecca said scoffing. "That guy won’t get angry at you just because you’re asking for help. That’s not who he is—getting irritated at people seeking assistance for legitimate problems."

She leaned back slightly. "Rather, he’ll probably be happy about it. Grateful, even, to have something concrete he can actually do to help someone. Everything else in his life right now is stuff he can’t fix—he can’t bring Jasmine back, can’t reach Elena, can’t undo any of the terrible things that happened. But helping you with your vision? That’s something tangible and achievable that would make a real difference in your quality of life."

Obviously, Rebecca had learned enough about Ryan’s personality over these months of living and surviving together. He was someone who helped compulsively, who found purpose and maybe even solace in being useful to others. And concerning those close to him—people he considered part of his inner circle or under his protection—he was ready to go to extraordinary lengths to ensure their wellbeing and safety.

Daisy clearly fell into that category of people Ryan cared about protecting, even though the younger woman might not fully believe or understand that herself. She was part of their extended group, had survived alongside them through countless dangers, and had proven herself trustworthy and kind despite her physical limitations. Ryan would absolutely help her if she asked—Rebecca had zero doubt about that.

"Or should I ask him myself?" Rebecca asked.

"N...No, it’s fine," Daisy stammered, her fingers twisting together. "I’ll ask him when he comes back."

Rebecca glanced around, already knowing the answer. As expected, he’d been the first to slip away—and he wouldn’t be the first to return, either. If left to his own devices, he’d likely vanish until nightfall, pretending everything was fine. But this time, he hadn’t been left alone, no matter how much he insisted he was. He could fool strangers with that act, but not those who knew him best.