by Megan Hart
The three of them froze as they heard pounding footsteps from the corridor outside. The frenzied shrieking had stopped, replaced by the sound of many voices yelling. Doors slammed.
Sophie led them through the maze of dusty, sagging shelves. The thin light from the lanterns didn’t reach back here, but she led them confidently. The aisles were wide and free of debris, so they had no fear of tripping. Within moments they’d reached a small door set so inconspicuously into the wall that Elanna had to strain to see it.
“Here,” Sophie said. “I used to use this to sneak out of training.”
She pushed open the door and they stepped out into the night. Not night for so much longer, Elanna noted, seeing the first pink touches of light in the sky. The sun would be up soon.
The night was not silent. Tobin pulled them back against the wall as several doors slammed and a group of Gappers ran across the yard. They moved with purpose, already dressed in their uniforms.
“They’re dressed for drill,” Sophie said puzzledly. “But it’s not drill day.”
Her confusion cleared in a moment. Kodak’s voice, strained but still recognizable, rang through the yard.
“Move, you cunts! I want you ready to fly before the sunrise! I want to slaughter those Plain fucks in their beds! We’ll find those strangers, and I want to pull them apart piece by motherfucking piece with my teeth, goddammit! They killed the General, those fucking dicklickers, and I want them dead!”
“No,” Elanna breathed. She turned to Tobin. “Toby, she found the General. She’s going after our friends!”
“We have to get there first,” Tobin said grimly, watching the flurry of activity. “We have to warn them. We have to get them to fight.”
−
49-
Kodak had to physically restrain herself to keep from leaping over the hood of the truck and strangling that dumb fuck Wilson. The other girl fiddled with the electrical line, trying to get the truck to fire up, but she was taking too damn long. Kodak snapped her fingers rapidly, first one hand and then the other, and rocked on the balls of her feet. Finally she couldn’t stand it any more.
“What the fuck is wrong with it?” She pushed Wilson aside to stare into the guts of the machine.
“It’s old,” Wilson said flatly. Her eyes were dry but haunted. She’d been in the room with Lansing until she died. Wilson jerked her hand toward the row of dark garages. “Like the rest of them. I might not be able to get it started.”
Kodak didn’t lose her temper. Well, not much. “You get it started,” she said and fixed Wilson with a look that made her step back. “Or I fuck you up. Bad. Worse than the General ever did.”
Kodak didn’t give a flying fuck about how the rest of them grumbled. She was in charge now, because she was the best. The strongest and the best, and she’d take over where the General had left off. But better, she thought. He’d gotten sloppy lately, even lazy.
“A new order,” she said aloud, just to hear the words. “A new fucking order!”
“Sir!”
“Yes, Thomas, go ahead.”
“We only have three working weapons, Sir!”
Kodak sighed, reigning in the desire to slap Thomas to the dirt and make her eat it, just because she didn’t like the way she looked today. Instead, she forced a smile to her face, noticing that the other girl recoiled from the expression as though she’d bared her teeth to bite instead of grin. Good. That was just fine. She didn’t need friends, she needed soldiers.
“What’s wrong with the others?” She meant the ones that had been working for the past few months, not the ones that had been sent to the junk pile already.
“Sir, they’re just jammed up.”
“Clean them!” Kodak barked, turning back to the truck to talk to Wilson. Thomas, however, didn’t leave. She stood there, shifting stupidly from foot to foot with an embarrassed, shifty look on her face that made Kodak’s blood boil. “What? What’s fucking wrong with you? Didn’t you hear me?”
“Sir, they’re clean.”
“Fuck!” Kodak screamed, wishing there were something else she could say. Something stronger. Fuck just didn’t do it for her anymore. “Jesus motherlicking humped up dicksucker!”
Thomas winced against the onslaught of obscenity but stood her ground. “They’re jammed up, Sir. I’m sorry.”
“Sorry!” Kodak yelled. “Sorry won’t buy a twat rag to wipe your sorry cunt with! Sorry doesn’t do diddlyfuck for me! You go clean those fathersucking weapons and get them working or else I’ll wipe my ass with your face!”
And still Thomas didn’t flee before her. “Sir, I beg your pardon Sir, but we’ve cleaned them all. And even if we got them working again, we don’t have enough ammo --”
For one horrid moment Kodak thought she might have burst a vein in her head. Her eyes actually pulsed in time with her heartbeat, throbbing, while red bursts clouded her vision. She stumbled forward, leaning against the truck.
“Sir! Are you all right?” That was Wilson, putting her hand on Kodak’s shoulder.
“Wilson,” Kodak gritted out, “if you ever fucking touch me again without permission I’ll cut your hand off and make you eat it.”
“Yes, Sir!”
She shook her head until she could see again, and straightened. She didn’t miss the look Thomas and Wilson exchanged, but she’d deal with that later. Right now she just wanted to get this bitchly buttreaming mission into gear. She wanted blood.
“Find Dallas,” Kodak said. “She knows where all that shit is. Then load the weapons, get this fucking truck running and let’s load it up, for Christ’s sake!”
Thomas snapped off a salute that would have made the General choke, but Kodak let it go. The other girl ran back toward the barracks. There’d be time to whip these pansies back into shape, after they slaughtered those fucks in town. After she fucked up that pussy Tobin and made his bitch watch.
“Get back to work, Wilson!”
“Yes, Sir,” Wilson said without enthusiasm.
“You don’t even care, do you,” Kodak stated. She watched Wilson’s face carefully. “Why don’t you care, Wilson?”
“I care, Sir,” Wilson said, turning back to the truck.
“No, you don’t,” Kodak said. “They killed the General, Wilson. Doesn’t that make you mad?”
Wilson turned, her fingertips dark with smoke and soil from the stubborn engine. “No, Kodak. It doesn’t.”
Kodak couldn’t believe what she heard. “They killed him, Wilson. Blew his head to bits with his own gun! And that doesn’t piss you off?”
Wilson shook her head silently. Then she bent back to work under the hood, twisting the scraps and strands of wire that connected the battery packs to the starter cables. One fell, slipping through her fingers and getting lost.
“Well, that about fucks that up,” she said.
Kodak was still in shock over Wilson’s total lack of anger. “What, you’re done? You can’t do any more?”
“What do you want me to do?” Wilson flared. “I’ve got shit to work with! All this shit is falling apart, Kodak! It’s all I can do to keep any of it together, much less operating!”
Kodak reached out and grabbed the other girl’s throat. “Fix it, Wilson, or I swear on the General’s name I will fuck you up. I will fucking kill you.”
She let Wilson slide from her grip. The other girl fell heavily against the truck, crying out in pain as she cracked her head. Kodak spit on the ground beside her. Wilson got to her feet and started working with the wires again.
Fear, Kodak thought with satisfaction, was a wonderful motivator.
−
50-
“Can you run six miles?” Tobin asked Elanna. “Or more?”
She didn’t even know if she could walk that far, but she nodded anyway. She’d try. “Do you think we can get there before them?”
Sophie paused to look back at them. “If we go through the fields and the woods, and if we go fast. We might be able to get
there before they do.”
The girl grinned. “I dumped the ammo into the dry rations boxes. They’ll never look there. At least they won’t have a lot of bullets.”
Sophie had led them around the back of the building and through a maze of rotting vehicles. Now the four of them had reached the open land beyond the central compound. Elanna looked nervously at the sky.
“Do you think they’ll see us?”
Sophie stopped again, looking down at her clothes. She pointed to Elanna’s and Tobin’s, both in the same brown and green splattered pattern. “Not in these.”
Elanna wanted to hug the girl again, but they didn’t have time. Instead, she just followed behind Tobin. The baby’s head peeped out of the backpack, but she’d tucked him in firmly. He didn’t wobble around. Thankfully, he was asleep. The constant rhythm of Tobin’s stride must be soothing him.
A gust of breeze brought the sound of curses to them. Sophie looked back again, the wind whipping her fair hair about her thin face. “Kodak. Yelling at Wilson. The truck won’t start.”
Elanna hadn’t heard more than muffled shouting, and she was stunned that Sophie’d been able to pick out what they were saying. “That’s good though, isn’t it?”
“It’s good for now, but Kodak won’t settle for that,” Sophie said, starting forward again. “She wants the truck because it’s faster than the tank. She wants to get there fast. She’ll make Wilson fix it, or she’ll fuck her up.”
Tobin looked up at the pink blush of the rising sun. He shifted the straps on his shoulders. “It’s all we have. We just have to hope that it’s enough.”
They really didn’t run, but walked at a pace that soon had Elanna fighting for breath. Her legs ached along with her belly, which still needed recovery from the trauma of losing her baby. Had that only been four days ago? She’d lived an eternity since then. The infant on Tobin’s back opened his eyes for a moment and let them slip closed again.
She was worried about the child. He was sleeping so much, even for a newborn. And so tiny! She’d never born a baby that small, not even her first. Elanna kept her eyes on the sweet fuzzy head, concentrating on the baby so she didn’t have to think about the pains in her feet and legs and stomach.
Sophie led them slipping through the trees and brush with practiced ease. The girl moved silently, seeking just the right places to put her feet and the right bushes to move aside. Tobin and Elanna weren’t so quiet.
None of them spoke. Walking took all their effort, especially at the pace Sophie set. Elanna was determined not to ask for a break, though her throat felt like sand. The sun rose higher overhead, painting the sky with gold now. They’d been walking forever and not long enough.
“Halfway there,” Sophie said suddenly. Her words after the silence were shockingly loud. A bird, startled, flew from the bush in front of her, and Elanna fought back a scream.
Tobin turned to look at her, and the concern in his eyes made her want to cry. He saw she was fine and smiled at her, though it didn’t reach his eyes. He looked tired, the dark scruff of his beard standing out against his unusually pale cheeks. And still they walked.
At last they reached a place Elanna recognized. The stream they’d jumped in the car, the one Maranian had fallen in. They were close now, she thought with relief. She stumbled to the water, kneeling in front of it to take huge gulps of the clear cold fluid.
Sophie did the same, though she did that silently and without splashing, too. Tobin slipped the pack from his back before he, too, knelt, and Elanna stopped seeking satisfaction for her own thirst long enough to check the child.
His eyes were open, and he started to cry. Alarmed, Elanna pressed her fingers to the boy’s tongue. Dry. No tears, though he wailed and flailed his tiny fists.
“The baby’s getting dehydrated,” she said. “I have to nurse him. Try to give him some fluid, something, or he will die.”
Tobin looked back the way they’d come. He didn’t tell her they didn’t have much time. He just nodded and helped her pull the baby from its swaddling.
Elanna put the baby to her breast, a motion so familiar she didn’t even need to think of it. The infant rooted listlessly, his dry lips scrabbling against her nipple. He latched on, sucked for a moment and then began to cry weakly.
“Come on, sweetheart,” Elanna cooed. She willed calmness upon herself. Nursing didn’t work if the mother or the child were upset and tense. She took some deep breaths, though every moment that passed screamed that the Gappers were closing in. “Come, sweet baby. See what mama has for you.”
She didn’t realize she’d called herself mama until she saw Tobin’s face contort. He looked away, bending back to the stream and drinking. To hide his reaction, she thought. And what it was, she didn’t know.
“There,” she said, as the baby tried again. This time he sucked more vigorously, beating his little hands against her until she pressed them between her fingers. “Drink, baby. You need to drink.”
It was too hard to know if anything was letting down. Too early for the sharp tingling that would signify she was producing full milk. The baby tried, though, valiantly.
“Water?” Sophie asked shyly. She held out a small metal collapsible cup. “For the baby?”
It might work. Elanna dipped her fingers in the cup and wet the infant’s lips with them. He sucked at her fingers eagerly, and protested when she pulled them away. She dipped again and again, letting the baby get as much of the fluid as he could, then putting him back to the breast to suckle again.
Finally he fell asleep again, tiny fingers curled around hers. She slipped one finger into the corner of his mouth to break the suction, and slipped his mouth from her nipple. It didn’t take long to bundle him back up and slip him in the backpack again.
“I’m ready,” she said.
Crossing the stream took no time at all, and then they were on the move again. Racing, Elanna thought, struggling to keep up with Sophie and Tobin. At least they hadn’t heard a truck coming. They were still ahead.
Despite the early hour, when they finally reached the Stolzfus barn they found Enoch inside with his brother-in-law, Abe. Both men looked startled to see them, and Elanna realized that dressed as they were, the men thought they were Gappers. Then Enoch recognized Tobin and strode to meet him.
“Tobin Vinter!”
“Enoch,” Tobin greeted. He slung the backpack from his shoulders and handed it to Elanna. “We don’t have much time. The Gappers are coming.”
Sophie hung back behind Elanna. Enoch saw her and his eyes flickered recognition, but he didn’t say anything to her. Elanna put her arm around the girl’s thin shoulders, offering her comfort.
“Gappers? Here coming?” Enoch asked. He exchanged a look with Abe. “Why?”
“To kill you, and us,” Tobin said grimly. “We…we had a little trouble up there. Kodak wants war. You have to get ready to fight. If you don’t fight them, they’ll kill you all. She’s coming, and she’s mad. She’s crazy. And she wants blood.”
Abe, an older man whose beard had more gray than black, cleared his throat. “We about fighting know nothing. We weapons have none.”
“You have lots of weapons,” Sophie spoke up, then ducked behind Elanna again. The girl took a deep breath and stepped forward. “You have those.”
She pointed to the rows of farming implements. “And those.” To the bins filled with carefully salvaged nails and screws. “And you have fire, don’t you?”
“It will work not,” came a familiar voice from the barn’s doorway. Samuel shuffled through it. “Tobin Vinter. Return I knew you would, and with trouble bring.”
“It will have to work,” Tobin said, ignoring the rest of the old man’s comment.
“It can’t,” Samuel said stubbornly. “For even if away we send them, back again they will come.”
Elanna handed Sophie the backpack and baby. The girl took the burden gingerly, then more firmly when the baby didn’t protest. Sophie looked at the baby with so
mething like awe.
“Unless kill them all we do,” Enoch said.
Everyone turned to look at him. Elanna’s heart broke at the fury in Enoch’s eyes. It was because of her and Tobin he’d been pushed this far, she thought. Their fault. Sophie crowded against her, shivering, and Elanna wondered what she thought. They talked of killing the girls and young women who were her family as casually as though they spoke of swatting flies. How must she feel?
“There must be another way,” Elanna said.
Tobin glanced at Sophie, and Elanna saw her thoughts reflected in his eyes. “I hope so.”