Free The Broken and the Dead (Book 1) by Jay Morris

three insets for campers or tents. Each was numbered and had a cinderblock barbeque grill. There was a well in the middle of the turnaround; there was one of those old fashioned pump handles on it and a faucet that was big enough to hang a bucket on. A sign said that the water was safe washing or cooking but should be boiled before drinking. We pulled into the center lot and it wasn’t but another minute when Old Man Tucker pulled in beside us.
    We got out of the cars and I could tell we all were worn. Lucy ran over to Old Man Tucker and started jabbering away at him. Mom and Mrs. Driscol were talking and Billy and I went off to one side for a planning session. Poor Elaine just sat in the car, not moving, it made my heart break to see her like that but I just didn’t know what to do. After a few minutes Old Man Tucker who was holding Lucy’s hand walked over to me and Billy and asked us if we would go and gather some sticks for the fire. We said sure and he gave us the obligatory
    “Watch out for each other and be careful.”
    He and Lucy went over to Mom and Mrs. Driscol and the four of them started talking. We both had an arm full of medium and small sized sticks, our rifles slung on our backs when Billy stopped and said “Johnny, did you think it would be like this? Killing I mean?”
    I stopped for a second and thought about it,
    “I don’t know Billy, I thought it would be like on TV but it just isn’t.”
    He turned and looked at me, and then he looked away because he had tears in his eyes
    “I did it Johnny, I shot them, they were crazies I know, but I shot them. Some of them were so close I could smell their breath, Johnny, I...”
    He stopped in mid-sentence unable to continue and then I remembered something and I passed it on to Billy;
    “Old Man Tucker said you and me were two of the toughest men he had ever known.” 
    Billy looked at me and said “I don’t feel very tough”
    Sniffing back his running nose.
    “Maybe that’s what makes us men”. 
    He asked me what I meant by that. I cleared my throat and tried to explain,
    “I mean, maybe doing what we did even though we were both scared to death, maybe that’s what makes us men instead of just little kids.”
    Billy thought about and smiled his crooked smile at me and whispered,
    “Yeah, I think you are right.”
    We gathered up as much firewood as we could carry and headed back to the campsite.
    Old Man Tucker and Lucy were setting up our family tent; it was a pretty cool one with three rooms, one in the middle and one more off to each side that had their own zipper doors. Mrs. Driscol was setting out some cans of food but it was already too dark for me to see what she was making. I noticed that her rifle was leaning against a box of supplies not far from her. Mom was over by her car, talking to Elaine, gently pulling on her hands to get her to get out of the car. Billy leaned over to me as we started stacking the sticks in the pit.
    “Do you think she will be okay?” he asked.
    “I hope so” was all I could say.
    About that time Lucy came skipping up to us singing softly,
    “Mr. T. Mr. T. Mr. T. T. T. he gave the matches to ME. ME. ME.”
    I rolled my eyes but Billy laughed and said
    “Well, MISS Lucy, would you like to light the fire?”
    He knelt down and pointed to a small bundle of dry grass that he had twisted together, neatly balanced like a teepee all around that were some small sticks and then bigger ones and bigger ones. Lucy clapped her hands and said “yeah!” she hopped twice and stood right next to Billy, he told her to take out one match and close the box, then to kneel down very close to the dry grass and then to drag the match across the side of the box. ‘Scratch, fizzle, scratch, fizzle’ went the first two matches but Billy said that he knew she could do it and on the third one it burst into flame and she put it in the grass and jumped back as if it were going to explode, clapping her hands in delight. ‘Kids’