Through The Valley by Yates, B.D. (feel good books .txt) 📕

"It doesn't matter where he is," Emmit snapped back, a little darker than he intended. Poke only chuckled.

"Yeah yeah, you're breakin' my fuckin' heart," he sneered, then turned to select his own weapon from the lineup Roy had leaned against the cabin wall for them. The weapons, like the meat, were stored in Roy's secretive shed. The thought of hot food got Emmit's stomach growling and burbling.

God, what I wouldn't do for some bacon and eggs over easy, maybe a big bowl of grits with melted butter and honey...

  Poke chose a spear, a sapling that had been cut down and tipped with a rock that had been shaped into an arrowhead.  He was grinning as he twirled it dexterously, jabbing at the still air with it. Emmit's club felt dumber somehow, too simple to take into combat.  He took a step back, cocked it over his shoulder like a baseball bat and gave it a swift practice swing. It cut heavily through the air, making a satisfying swoosh.  Suddenly, the heft of it felt good in his hands. Maybe it wasn't such a dumb weapon after all.

  It did spin a zombie's head around backwards, in case you forgot.

  Pup had chosen what looked like a set of daggers, and although he was too far away for Emmit to see how they had been crafted, he found himself going over schematics in his head as he bounced the heavy club off of his palm.  The smoothed wood slapped quietly against his hand. He imagined the knives were nothing more than sharpened rocks lashed to wooden handles, maybe with more strands of the thread or strips of old clothes wrapped around to make a hilt that was easier to hold. That was how he would have made it, anyway.

  Pup wasn't stretching or jogging in place, nor was he practicing his stabs and jabs. He stood in place quietly, staring down at the daggers in his hands as if they were speaking to him. His breaths came out in fast little clouds that drifted above his head like smoke from a locomotive.

  He's just a scared kid, Emmit thought, and felt pity for the boy. "Pup" was an apt nickname for him. Up until then he really hadn't gotten a good look at the kid. He couldn't have been older than eighteen or nineteen. His head was capped with a shock of hair that still had traces of blue in it, a dye job he had probably brought with him through the "time warp". He still had acne, too; his boyish features couldn't be called a pizza face, but there were still clusters of zits scattered around his forehead and nose like constellations.

Muddy was busy swinging a club around in circles like a child with a bubble wand. He was grinning his Jack o' Lantern grin, chuckling as the weight of the club pulled him in different directions. The fingers of his disabled arm hung like dead worms, flopping against his chest. Emmit began to wonder if perhaps he might be mentally disabled. The little man tried to lift the club up over his head and the burden carried him backwards, and he dropped clumsily on his ass, laughing in idiot guffaws as he sat in the snow.

As if some mysterious horror director had summoned him, Roy stalked out of the cabin, his heavy boots burying themselves deep into the snow. His hair and beard were tangling together into flowing tangles as they fluttered in the soft wind. The black handprint over his face was impossibly black, making his wild eyes look like they were going to pop out of his skull like cannonballs. Instantly, they zeroed in on Muddy.

"Muddy!" He roared, his explosive voice echoing again and again across the desolate landscape.

Muddy-dy-dy-dy—

The other men shot to attention like a troop of soldiers caught goofing off by a drill instructor, and before he could stop himself, Emmit was doing it too. He had a white knuckled grip on the club, holding it in front of him defensively.  With the new patchwork clothing “armor” he’d been given, he matched everyone else.  It really did feel like an early morning in boot camp.

Didn't he say something about being quiet? He'll draw every Link in the area down on us.

"Quit fucking around," Roy grumbled, snatching the club out of Muddy's good hand. He yanked it so strongly that Muddy was pulled up out of the snow with it, stumbling forward as wet clumps of dirty snow tumbled from his damp posterior. "You know you can't handle a club."

Roy leaned the club against the cabin and snatched up another spear, pointing the deadly sharpened stone on the tip right between Muddy's eyes. The little man grabbed it gingerly. Roy seemed to soften then, like an abusive husband about to comfort the crying wife he just slugged for burning dinner. He placed his hand on Muddy's folded arm, squeezing it gently.

"I just don't want you getting yourself killed," he said, then with a gesture that seemed almost strangely intimate, he brushed his fingers across the scars on Muddy's cheek. The ones Emmit had thought looked like the number 11. "You know bad shit happens when you guys don't listen to me, right?" Roy's voice sounded like a powerful but aged engine, growling under the chipped and rusted hood of someone's project hot rod.

  Muddy wilted, and suddenly he looked very small and weak. He nodded, childlike, sticking the end of the spear into the ground and straightening his back. There was no laughter left on his face; his eyes were haunted and empty.

  "Remember what I told you," Roy continued. "Lunge sideways, with your good arm towards the Link. Brace the spear along the back of your arm and your shoulder. That will help compensate for the other arm."

  "I won't forget, Boss."

Roy turned, and Emmit saw with growing dread that he was headed