my mother’s name is trumpet

   From his post behind the foliage, Dennis takes a moment to take in the two on horseback, hand drifting to his gun. It’s a man and a woman, armed with a shotgun at the horse’s side and a crossbow, respectively. They look… clean, clothing whole and unripped. Compared to the squalor and dirtiness he had grown used to these past few months, they almost look godly. He thinks of Cass and Tobi, waiting hidden away in their make-shift strip mall home, and realises this might be his chance.

    Standing up slowly, he doesn’t bother avoiding the leaves and branches surrounding him, and watches as the two wheel around to face his direction at the rustling, the woman raising her crossbow sharply.

    “Not a zombie!” he calls out, stepping out of the brush with hands raised. The man relaxes a bit, but the woman stands firm. “That doesn’t mean you aren’t dangerous,” she calls back, eyes trained on him. Dennis is certain that if he made one wrong move she’s shoot him dead with no hesitation. It’s still more charitable than some of the shooting policies the lone wolves he’s crossed paths with had. 

    “How ‘bout you drop the gun,” says the man, with a southern drawl, “and then we can have a proper conversation?”

    With eyes on the woman, Dennis carefully unholsters his gun and drops it on the forest floor, fingers never near the trigger. His mother may not have liked him knowing how to work a gun, but by god did she teach him well regarding handling it. 

    “Anything else?”

 Dennis shook his head, turning around slowly, arms stretched out to show there was no room in his clothes to hide another weapon. When he was back to facing the riders, the woman had lowered the crossbow to rest on her leg. The man nodded approvingly, and beckoned him over.

    “Benny Gold,” he said as Dennis awkwardly tramped through the bushes, “and my friend over here is Diamond. You got a name?”

    Reaching out for a handshake, Dennis said, “Dennis, Dennis Lieberman. Where are you guys from? I haven’t seen anyone with white shirts that are actually white in ages.”

    Benny grinned, visibly proud. “It’s called Clemency, up a ways. It got started up a little after, well, all this,” he lazily waves a hand in a wide arc, as if to encompass the fields and woods and all the dead, diseased corpses potentially lurking in them. Dennis repressed a snort at the casual air of it all.

    Diamond narrows her eyes, expression not quite angry, but certainly not kind either. “If you’re looking for a hide-away, we’ve got conditions,” she warned.

    “Do those conditions have exceptions for kids?”

    Not once in his questioning did he bring up there matter of guns, or hunting down zombies, or even if they would let him bring his own weapons. Reluctantly, Diamond found herself liking the man. Despite his burly, manly-man build and beard, he had an earnest air to him, and never seemed to growl or scowl like the uber-prepared, weapon-wielding men she had first brushed with in the wake of society's collective breakdown were so fond of doing. Still, that didn’t mean she would trust him. James, Kenny, and Don and their group of male sycophants had seemed like perfectly down-to-earth men in the beginning months of Clemency too, and then they tried to break into the gun-shed out of some wild idea that they, blue-collar men with no idea what farm life was like, were the rightful leaders of the place due to their manhood.

    It hadn’t worked, of course, and the whole group had been kicked out, but after that Diamond was hardly inclined to give some random man off the street the benefit of the doubt. She glanced at Ben to gauge his opinion, and suppressed a sigh at the look on his face as he explained the irrigation system to Dennis. While most would assume she and Ben were simply coworkers, sticking together because they had to get the job done, the truth was they had been friends long before the village was even a glimmer in Maizy’s eye. Therefore, she knew damn well how Ben looked when head the beginnings of a crush. 

    Nudging her horse Pennyfarthing closer to Ben so he was forced to look at her, she leveled him with a look that she hoped conveyed the words, “For fucks sake, Gold, don’t get attached.”  Luckily, he seemed to understand, if the face he made back at her was any clue.

    Finally, they emerged from the trees to face several squat buildings next to a pothole-filled road; the solemn, worn remains of modern life. “It’ll just be on the other side now,” said Dennis, who had perked up at the sight of crumbling bricks and flaking paint. Diamond grimaced. If this was where they were sticking it out, she could understand why he seemed so interested in Clemency; she and Ben, at least, had had a structurally sound house to hide out in the beginning. All the buildings here looked one harsh breeze from falling into themselves. They crossed through the road with little concern-- if anyone still had a car and gas, they wouldn’t be using it up on a random road in Michigan.

    The strip mall seemed a bit sturdier than the other buildings, though that didn’t really mean much. Graffiti and other unidentifiable substances were caked to the bricks, the glass fronts all broken long ago. The cleanest parts of the place were the bright patches where signs once hung, stark in contrast. The parking lot is just as hole-filled as the road, grass, weeds, and even a small tree pushing through the remains. There are also quite a few crusted, dark brown spots roughly the size of bodies that Diamond chose not to linger on. 

Dennis immediately headed to what once was named Anne’s Bagels, according to the cracked wooden sign somehow still clinging to its place above the doorway. Following after, Diamond peered through the broken window, Ben right behind her, and considered the rotten wooden floorboards, scattered remaining tables and chairs, and torn yellow wallpaper vainly sticking to the walls. Despite the obvious wear, she could see efforts to make the place homier; the dining area had been swept and the furniture shoved into the corner save for three chairs and a table, and the counter were the register likely once sat had been cleared off as well. A ragged blanket was hanging from the backroom door, probably to at least give the illusion of privacy. 

She watched as Dennis knocked firmly on the doorframe in a pattern she didn’t recognize, calling out “Come on out, I’ve got some nice folks for you guys to meet!” Raising her crossbow slightly-- this still could be a trap, after all-- Diamond waited. 

There were a few moments of hurried scuffling, and the blanket was pulled back to reveal two wide-eyed faces. Two girls stared out at them, one a lanky, pale girl with dishwasher blonde hair, and the other a younger black girl with her hair clipped back, poofing out from behind her head. Diamond estimated they were probably about fourteen and eight, respectively, before her thoughts were interrupted by a squeal of “Horses!”  as the younger girl ducked out from the blanket and ran full tilt towards them. 

“Hold your horses, now, Cass,” Dennis warned, scooping the girl up into a fireman’s carry before she could actual reach Pennyfarthing, “you can’t just run up to them, they’ll get spooked and buck our new friends off.”

Cass giggled wildly at the joke as Dennis her spun around, and cried, “Okay, okay! Put me down,” wacking at his back for good measure. Diamond found herself unwilling endeared. Dennis compiled, setting her back down onto the floor, and beckoned to the girl who had still hid in the backroom, watching them all with solemn eyes. Reluctantly, she crept out, muttering a quiet hello.

“Right,” Dennis beamed, “That’s Tobi over there, and this is Cassandra!” He gestured to Cass, who was approaching Pennyfarthing with exaggerated stealth. Ben walked Delilah so they were side by side, and the girl’s eyes widened once more. 

“Dalmation horse,” she breathed, staring at Delilah’s black-spotted side. This time, Diamond didn’t bother hiding her snort as Ben broke out into a wide grin.

Maybe she could trust these people. Just a little bit.

[ID: A black and white ink drawing of a pair of black hands putting a ring on a white one. The background consists of curved radial lines, scattered stars and waves, all of which converge at the ring. End ID.]

   From his post behind the foliage, Dennis takes a moment to take in the two on horseback, hand drifting to his gun. It’s a man and a woman, armed with a shotgun at the horse’s side and a crossbow, respectively. They look… clean, clothing whole and unripped. Compared to the squalor and dirtiness he had grown used to these past few months, they almost look godly. He thinks of Cass and Tobi, waiting hidden away in their make-shift strip mall home, and realises this might be his chance.

    Standing up slowly, he doesn’t bother avoiding the leaves and branches surrounding him, and watches as the two wheel around to face his direction at the rustling, the woman raising her crossbow sharply.

    “Not a zombie!” he calls out, stepping out of the brush with hands raised. The man relaxes a bit, but the woman stands firm. “That doesn’t mean you aren’t dangerous,” she calls back, eyes trained on him. Dennis is certain that if he made one wrong move she’s shoot him dead with no hesitation. It’s still more charitable than some of the shooting policies the lone wolves he’s crossed paths with had. 

    “How ‘bout you drop the gun,” says the man, with a southern drawl, “and then we can have a proper conversation?”

    With eyes on the woman, Dennis carefully unholsters his gun and drops it on the forest floor, fingers never near the trigger. His mother may not have liked him knowing how to work a gun, but by god did she teach him well regarding handling it. 

    “Anything else?”

 Dennis shook his head, turning around slowly, arms stretched out to show there was no room in his clothes to hide another weapon. When he was back to facing the riders, the woman had lowered the crossbow to rest on her leg. The man nodded approvingly, and beckoned him over.

    “Benny Gold,” he said as Dennis awkwardly tramped through the bushes, “and my friend over here is Diamond. You got a name?”

    Reaching out for a handshake, Dennis said, “Dennis, Dennis Lieberman. Where are you guys from? I haven’t seen anyone with white shirts that are actually white in ages.”

    Benny grinned, visibly proud. “It’s called Clemency, up a ways. It got started up a little after, well, all this,” he lazily waves a hand in a wide arc, as if to encompass the fields and woods and all the dead, diseased corpses potentially lurking in them. Dennis repressed a snort at the casual air of it all.

    Diamond narrows her eyes, expression not quite angry, but certainly not kind either. “If you’re looking for a hide-away, we’ve got conditions,” she warned.

    “Do those conditions have exceptions for kids?”