Displaced

by Drake,Stephen

  As he proceeded into the encampment, Murdock inspected the camp sites for signs of recent use. Though he took some time to get within a few feet of the enclosed base of the pod, he had yet to hear or see signs of life. When he was within a few feet, he motioned for Mei Lee to come to him and to stay alert.

  With Mei Lee posted in her new position, Murdock moved quietly around the enclosed base, looking for an entrance inside the enclosure. After making a complete circuit and finding no entry, he crouched to contemplate the situation.

  “Hey,” Murdock called out. “Is anyone alive in there?” He waited for some sort of noise or sound from inside the enclosure.

  “Stay here and stay somewhat hidden,” Murdock flashed to Mei Lee. Then he moved around to the other side, posting himself to cover the area Mei Lee couldn’t see.

  “Hey, inside the base,” Murdock yelled when he was in position. “Come out now!” He waited for some time listening and watching. As he waited, he looked over the seal on the enclosure. The join of the skin of the pod and the sod enclosing the base was a very tight fit.

  “Watch close. I’m going to make an opening.” Murdock flashed to Mei Lee.

  Murdock levitated each piece of the sod away, one piece at time. He also stayed very alert for possible threats. Soon he had an opening large enough that he could see inside a little. He saw no indications of life. But the air underneath the enclosed base was fetid.

  “You remove a couple of pieces of the sod to let some light inside,” Murdock flashed. “Don’t use your hands, use your mind.”

  As he watched, he saw the underside of the pod lighten somewhat. He then projected his astral self inside the enclosure to check it. No one moved under the pod, so he withdrew his astral self.

  “Start taking the enclosure down,” Murdock told Mei Lee. “Only go down about three feet. We need to be able to see more clearly, and it needs to air out before we can get inside.”

  Dismantling the enclosure enough to see inside and airing it out took some time. After Murdock could see the closed ramp, he focused his attention on it while he continued to tear down the enclosure. Then he moved into the enclosure with caution. He looked along the base of the wall, inspecting the ground closely. He did find a part of a body and levitated it outside the enclosure. When he reached the ramp, he banged on it with a rock, then moved away to wait for it to open. After a few minutes, he activated the external controls.

  The ramp opened slowly, significantly slower than he remembered, and Murdock positioned himself to cover the entrance into the pod. When it was fully opened, Murdock walked up the ramp with caution.

  The lights came on, but dimly. He looked around the pod and found another partial body, which he levitated outside the pod. After his inspection, he exited the pod, closed the ramp, and left the enclosure.

  “Come over here, Mei Lee,” Murdock said. He indicated the bodies. “You know them?”

  Mei Lee inspected them without getting too close. The stench was terrible. “They look to be two of the women,” Mei Lee said. She pointed to the first body. “That one may be Krysia Oblonski, but her head is too disfigured to be sure. I can’t tell who the other one is. What happened to them?”

  “They’re hacked up pretty bad,” Murdock said, looking a little closer. “I’m not sure, but they look like they were eaten. I hope I’m wrong!”

  “Where are the rest?” Mei Lee asked, looking around. “The thought of cannibalism is unnerving to me.”

  Murdock didn’t say anything, but cast around for a trail of some sort. When he found it, he turned pale, his heart pounding.

  “Rose. Rose,” he flashed, anxious. “Lock up the cabin. Lock it up tight.”

  “What’s wrong, Kevin?” Mei Lee asked, concerned by Murdock’s expression. Murdock indicated the direction of the trail. Mei Lee became pallid.

  “Leave everything. We need to get back,” Murdock said. “How fast can you move?”

  “I’ll do what I can to keep up,” Mei Lee said. “Don’t wait for me! Get home now!”

  “Rose. Answer me.” Murdock flashed, heading for home with Mei Lee following.

  Mei Lee, struggling to keep up, had sent her astral self to the cabin to see whether what she and Murdock feared had happened.

  22

  “Why would I close up the cabin?” Rose answered at last.

  “We’ve seen some disturbing signs, and I want the cabin secured immediately,” Murdock ordered.

  “The cabin is secure and I’m armed,” Rose said. “So, tell me what happened?” Murdock knew by the speed she secured the cabin that she had done as commanded even as he had commanded it.

  “We found no one alive at the encampment,” Murdock flashed. “We did find two bodies that appear to have been eaten.”

  “What happened to the rest?” Rose flashed.

  “We need to find them. The trail I found says they’re heading to the river. That is all we know, at present.”

  “I’m not comfortable with either of you finding the others, but I understand the need.”

  “We’ll be careful. You need to be more attentive to our calls and keep an eye on the cabin.”

  “Why are you going after them?” Mei Lee asked as the pair started to follow Whittier’s trail.

  “Would you rather wake up one morning and find them in our yard?” Murdock asked.

  The trail headed toward the river, and he and Mei Lee followed it. Both he and Mei Lee sent their astral selves ahead to locate any lurking threats. Neither one spoke, else Whittier and the rest hear them following. Mei Lee and Murdock followed the trail for hours.

  “Any sign?” Murdock whispered when they stopped for water.

  “None,” Mei Lee whispered.

  “We need to find out where they are and where they’re going,” Murdock said, eating some dried venison.

  “What are you going to do when you find them?” Mei Lee asked, joining him in eating.

  “I don’t know,” Murdock said in a quiet voice. “I have a hard time abiding cannibalism and murder. What do you think we should do?”

  “My first instinct is to kill them all,” Mei Lee said. “I can’t abide it either!”

  “Think about it long and hard,” Murdock told her. “After you kill someone, you can’t take it back. Ask yourself, what you would do to survive?”

  #

  At the end of winter, Whittier sent some men under the ramp to open up the enclosure. Everyone needed to leave the transport pod; they were all claustrophobic after so many months inside it. Whittier had reasoned that the pod could withstand the bitter cold of winter better than anything they could build. He would have preferred that they had more deer or fish, but the last two hunts, before the first snow, had been a bust and no one had spent any time fishing.

  Upon reaching the exterior of the enclosure, each survivor migrated quickly upwind, lying on the grass to breathe fresh air.

  Whittier took a few loud, deep breaths. “We made it through the winter,” he said, looking around to each one of the survivors with a plastic grin on his face. Only six women and four men of the original twenty had survived. Whittier knew the math was technically wrong, because if someone else counted, he made the fifth man. But he didn’t think of himself as one of the rest. Damn you, Murdock. Whittier thought. We have survived to spite you. I personally will make you pay for poor Karen Powell and poor Robin Allen. They were too young to have their throats slit like that.

  “We don’t have much food, Whittier,” Krysia said in a quiet voice as she gently touched Whittier’s arm.

  “I know. We need to find more food and different shelter,” Whittier told her. Everyone else was looking to him for direction. “Everyone, pick up everything that we can take with us,” he said loud enough for all to hear.

  “Are we going somewhere specific?” Mark Hunt asked weakly. “Or do you just want us to wander in this wilderness?”

  “No thanks to Murdock, we managed to survive after he and that witch Mei Lee left us all t
o starve,” Whittier said to everyone, glaring at Hunt for a few seconds. “In spite of that, we need to find food, quickly. I think we need to get to the river and decide which way to go from there. We should be able to catch a few fish to feed us all.”

  “Murdock did nothing to us,” Mark Hunt said loud enough for all to hear, though he was clearly talking to Whittier.

  “Really?” Whittier said with sarcasm. “He killed our friends and murdered Dick Jameson right in front of everyone!”

  “You tried to murder him when Mei Lee returned,” Hunt said. His words were having an effect on a few of the others.

  “How can you murder a thief?” Whittier said, hands out-stretched and a grin. “He stole from every one of us. He corrupted Rose and killed Metzger. All after Metzger had lawfully claimed her. He corrupted Collier, killed him, and then corrupted Mei Lee. How can you defend someone who kills indiscriminately and steals whatever he wants?” Whittier asked Hunt loudly.

  “You’re insane,” Hunt said weakly. He was too weak from starvation to argue with Whittier any longer.

  “I’m insane?” Whittier asked with incredulity as he strolled around the survivors. “I’ll leave it to the rest of you. You can either follow me or you can stay here. Anyone who feels the need to defend Murdock can stay here and wait for him to feed you.” Whittier kicked Mark Hunt’s foot lightly as he walked past. “Insanity is waiting for, or counting on, Murdock!”

  “Murdock and Mei Lee did a lot for us,” Mark Hunt said to those within hearing range. He watched Whittier as he paced and fingered the handle of his twelve-inch machete. Suddenly, Whittier pulled the machete and yanked Hunt’s head back, putting the machete to his throat. “My dying now or an hour from now makes little difference,” Hunt said with conviction. “To me, there is none. You can’t kill your conscience, no matter how many bodies you manage to pile up.” Even though he was weak, Hunt knew everyone heard his words.

  Whittier thought about it for a long while before he released Hunt and replaced his machete. “Get everything gathered, and let’s get going!” he commanded.

  Hunt remained reclined in the grass as the rest gathered up all they could carry, re-sealed the enclosure, and started toward the river. No one attempted to help him to his feet. He knew he wouldn’t last long out in the open, so with great effort, he finally got to his feet and followed. He wasn’t counting on Murdock or anyone else, but he thought he could provide Murdock — or whoever would find his body — an indication of the direction the rest of the survivors had taken.

  #

  Mei Lee and Murdock tracked the others to the river, at which point the trail turned downriver. The two then levitated across the river and then continued downriver. With the river between them and any threats from Whittier, Murdock and Mei Lee relaxed somewhat. Murdock followed the trail with his astral self, while Mei Lee provided over-watch with hers.

  Another few miles, they found another body. They crossed the river again, and Murdock inspected it. The body was the remains of a male with grey, wavy hair. Murdock remembered seeing him before, but he couldn’t recall his name. He also saw the familiar thin, red line on the man’s throat.

  “Mark Hunt,” Mei Lee added. “How did he die?”

  “Starvation, most likely,” Murdock said. “He seems emaciated and dehydrated.”

  “How long ago did he die?” Mei Lee asked with sadness in her voice.

  “Four or five hours would be my guess,” Murdock said, looking around to make sure they were still on the right trail. “See how he’s lying with his head and arm pointed downriver? I’d say he followed them for as long as he could to indicate where they went.”

  “How can you be sure?” Mei Lee asked, noting the body position.

  “I see no indication that he was killed, although someone had a knife to his throat,” Murdock said, shrugging. “We both know Whittier would have him killed if he knew Hunt was following.”

  “Where are we?” Mei Lee asked, finally looking around.

  “Several miles from the point at which we crossed the river,” Murdock told her.

  “It’s getting late and they’re going the wrong direction for us to worry about it,” Mei Lee said “Why don’t we just go home?”

  Murdock turned to her, his surprise apparent.

  “We can’t go home yet,” he said firmly. “At the very least, we need to bury the bodies we’ve found. And we need to know what the rest are up to. I, for one, don’t want to get stabbed in my sleep.”

  “If we bury the bodies, won’t they know we’ve been following them?” Mei Lee asked. “I’m inclined to go home and worry about them when and if they survive. Not many can be left!” Exhaustion showed itself on Mei Lee’s face. “What are you planning on doing if you find them, Kevin?”

  “I haven’t decided and I think that’s something we all need to discuss,” Murdock said.

  “Well, if you want to keep going, then do so,” Mei Lee said definitively. “I’ve seen too much death today, and I’m extremely tired.” Mei Lee turned and levitated herself over the river.

  She knew she was going against what Rose had asked, but she’d been through enough for one day. She hadn’t gone far when Murdock, following, grabbed her arm to stop her. He handed her his equipment. Then, after she had it all secured on her body, Murdock picked her up, as if he was giving her a piggyback ride and set off at a trot. He slowly picked up speed and the pair arrived home in a few hours.

  It was close to dark when they reached the cabin. Neither said anything. Murdock was exhausted from all of the exertions of the day. Mei Lee was more emotionally exhausted than anything else.

  “How bad was it?” Rose asked after a prolonged silence. She looked from Murdock to Mei Lee.

  “You have no idea,” Mei Lee said in a soft voice without looking at Rose. “I’ve never seen anything to compare it to. I’ve never even heard of anything like it.”

  Rose looked to Murdock. He shrugged and remained silent. Rose put an arm around Mei Lee’s shoulder to try to comfort her.

  “So, what do we do?” Rose asked after a long pause.

  Murdock tried to figure out how many had survived. As best he could figure, eleven were left. That put the three of them against eleven. Depending on who was left, Murdock figured two might refuse to fight; one or two would die of starvation before becoming a problem. That evened the odds some, but the aggressors still had a better than two to one advantage.

  “We could fight as we had originally planned,” Murdock offered. “It would mean that we can’t forget about them at all, not like we have lately. We all have to be prepared to take their lives, should they attack us.”

  “Are there any other alternatives?” Rose asked.

  “We could retreat to the caves and turn the cabin over to them,” Murdock said.

  “That option is not acceptable to me,” Rose said with sternness.

  “Why not?” Murdock asked.

  “I like the caves,” Rose answered, “and returning to them would be a viable alternative, but what happens if we retreat? Will they stop coming after us or will they take it as weakness and continue to chase us and hunt us? I think they wouldn’t stop until they killed us all, including the children!”

  “Mei Lee?” Murdock asked.

  “I can’t decide something like that right now,” Mei Lee snapped back. “I knew those people. All of them. I even liked most of them. I had to leave some friends unburied today, and that doesn’t sit well with me!” Tears ran down Mei Lee’s face as she spoke. “Why can’t they just leave us alone?” she asked as she buried her face in her hands and cried.

  Murdock and Rose decided to leave the issue until later, but they had decided between them that they would do what they had to do to survive. They secured the cabin and then went to bed. Murdock didn’t sleep soundly, but kept an ear open for any unusual noise.

  The next morning, Murdock walked around the cabin and the immediate area again with an eye toward defending against a larger force.
After checking the layout of the cabin, outbuildings, and all the topographical features, he decided that very little could actually be done. The cabin was already well-placed for defense, but the distances between features made it next to impossible to build a barricade with their available tools and manpower. He had a clear view of the meadow downstream from the cabin, so if someone came from that quarter he could take out a few before they got too close to the cabin.

  Murdock had built the cabin with windows on all sides, mainly for air flow. Those same windows would give the three inside a fortified place to fire from. The only preparation necessary, he thought, is more practice with the bows. We all need to extend our maximum accuracy range. The worst shot of the three needed to be able to get at least two well-placed shots in before someone was outside the door. Murdock thought his aim could bring down any attackers at two hundred yards from the cabin, if he was accurate enough. He hadn’t had much of an opportunity to use his bow since making it.

  When he re-entered the cabin, Mei Lee and Rose, who were feeding the babies, greeted Murdock.

  “We need to go to the encampment,” Mei Lee said to him in a low voice.

  “Why?” Murdock asked, a little surprised, but pleasantly so.

  “First, we need to bury the bodies we found,” Mei Lee said with sadness.

  “Second, we need to go through the pod and the enclosure for anything useful,” Rose added.

  “That will tip off Whittier to the fact that we are still coming around,” Murdock said.

  “Good,” Mei Lee said with energy. “He needs to get the message that we go where we will!”

  “That’s quite a change in attitude,” Murdock said. “What brought that on?”

  “I just thought about the kind of place I want Chun Hua to grow up in,” Mei Lee said thoughtfully. “I’d rather she die than go through what Whittier has put everyone else through.”

  “I’d rather Andrew not experience what you and I have because of Whittier,” Rose said with venom. “That does presuppose that he would let either of our children live.” Mei Lee nodded.