They all thought that was funny, too.
“Wh-hat d-d-d-do you want?” asked Neeko, but he tripped over nearly every syllable.
“Wuh-we whah-want duh-do wuh-we whah-want?” mocked a short, blocky guy with Asian eyes and bleached blond hair. “Tuh-take a guh-guess.”
Dahlia held up her hands, palms out. “Look, we don’t need to do this. Just let us go and we’ll be out of here. You’ll never see us again.”
That was apparently hilarious to the Rovers.
“Hey,” said Dahlia, “we’re leaving some supplies behind. A lot of them. I’ll tell you where they are, okay? That’s fair, right?”
The second woman, who was in her late forties and wore a pair of eyeglasses that had been repaired several times with tape, shook her head. “Sorry, honey, but that’s not how it works. I mean, sure, you will tell us where the stuff is, but it’s not going to buy you a Get Out of Jail Free card. You do know that, right? I mean, you’re not actually stupid.” She paused. “Are you, Dahlia?”
Dahlia stiffened at the use of her name, and it tore a small cry from Neeko.
“How . . . ?” she began but didn’t finish. There was only one way they could know her name, and it was as obvious as it was awful. “Trash,” she breathed.
“Trashy-boy is our friend,” agreed the woman with the glasses.
“He told you about me?”
“Hell yeah, he did. Told us all about all ya’ll. That little shit is either Mince or Neeko. Probably Neeko. He’s a scout and you think you’re Queen Shit, am I right?” The woman seemed very happy and she beamed a great smile. “Dahlia the Pack Leader. Dahlia, the fat girl with a knife who thinks she’s the baddest bitch in the apocalypse.”
Dahlia’s heart was tearing loose from its moorings and sinking in her chest. She wanted to throw up. She wanted to kill Trash. She wanted to crawl into a hole and die.
Instead she drew her knife.
It wasn’t the one she’d used to fight her way out of high school a million years ago. This was a heavy-bladed kukri knife, the signature weapon of the Ghurkas of Nepal, one of the fiercest fighting forces in history. Mr. Church had taught her how to use it, showing her how the weight of the blade could be used to generate a lot of whipping speed, and how it could be used to cleave through bone. Dahlia always liked knives, and that one seemed to want to be in her hand. It came alive when she drew it and maybe she did, too. What had the woman called her? Fat girl with a knife. Had those really been Trash’s words?
Dahlia was heartsick and terrified. Once the handle of the knife was seated into her fist, the blade curving outward with its graceful and deadly elegance, the fear seemed to recede.
“Get behind me,” she said to Neeko, and Dahlia barely even recognized her own voice.
Neeko didn’t move.
The five Rovers laughed. At her. At the fat girl with the weird knife.
And then she was among them.
— 27 —
THE WARRIOR WOMAN
The first thing Rachael was aware of was the wrongness.
She was in darkness and yet moving. She was not walking but her feet were moving. She was in pain.
A lot of pain.
Her head felt like it was broken. Cracked. Shattered. There was warmth on her cheeks and in her hair. Blood. She blinked, trying to clear her eyes, but there was so much blood there, too, that for a time she was blinded.
“She’s coming out of it,” said a voice. Her traumatized brain tried to tie the voice to a name, a face, but there was something wrong with her memory. Pieces of it seemed to have been hammered into meaningless shapes or broken off entirely. She wasn’t entirely sure she could recall her own name. However, two other names floated through the churning waters of her thoughts.
Jason.
Claudia.
Who were they?
She wished the world would stop moving so she could pull the cracked pieces of herself together. If they would stop dragging her along she could figure it all out and . . .
Dragging.
Yes. She was being dragged. There were hands under her armpits. Strong hands. She understood now that two men were half carrying her and that the toes of her shoes were scraping along over dirt and grass.
Jason. Claudia.
Suddenly the question was no longer who they were, but how they were. And where. With that Rachael felt herself coming back. All at once she knew who she was.
She also knew how much trouble she was in. Happy Valley. The slave labor. The escape attempt. The kick to the head. All of it. Her eyes were still caked with blood, but from the sounds and the grunting effort of the men as they hauled her over rough terrain, she reckoned she was outside.
Why, though? What was going to happen out here? Were they going to kill her? Rape her? It had to be something serious, otherwise they’d have simply tossed her outside the walls, slammed the gate and be done with it. This wasn’t expulsion, it was . . .
What?
Abruptly she was released and falling. She landed hard and badly, and the impact with the ground tore a cry from her. One of the men laughed.
“Yeah,” he said, “she’s awake. Good.”
Rachael felt sick and weak and knew that was from the kick to the head. In the old movies the heroine could get knocked out and then wake up ready for the next big action scene. Not in the real world. Trauma severe enough to knock her out did damage. The muscles and tendons in her neck hurt abominably, and there was a persistent ringing in her ears. She lay where she’d been dropped and brought weak hands up to paw the muck from her eyes. The world emerged. Daylight. Blindingly bright; she winced and hissed as if scalded, turning her head to the side to avoid the glare.
That’s when she saw the dead people.
So many dead people.
Orcs and . . . others. Some of them simply dead. But it wasn’t actually simple, was it? No, she told herself. This was wrong in a lot of very bad ways.
The corpses were tied to posts, straight poles with crossbars that stood all of the dead up like a grove of scarecrows. The corpses were in horrible shape. Emaciated, starved; their faces marked by their screams and suffering. She turned to see them, to see all of those faces. Every one of them had died hard out here. Many had been fed upon, with parts of arms and faces and bodies eaten away. Others slumped down in final, total defeat; unmarked by bites but clearly dead. On some of those, Rachael could see single post-mortem wounds from where someone had quieted them. A small mercy. A very cold comfort.
Then she saw two figures lashed to crossbars who were still alive.
God, she hoped they were still alive.
Jason.
Claudia.
Covered with blood. Strung up like scarecrows. Like sacrifices in some bizarre and perverse ritual. Other people—townsfolk—were finishing the process of tying their arms and legs.
“They look pretty,” said a voice behind her. “Don’t they?”
Rachael turned her head, which was enormously painful to undertake. The two men who’d carried her stood there. One was coiling a length of rope. The other was lighting a cigarette. He grinned at her through the smoke.
“What the fuck are you doing?” growled Rachael, but it came out hoarse and weak.
“Maintaining order,” said the man. He took a deep drag and exhaled blue smoke into the air. “You and your friends could have had it all. Clean beds, food, shelter. Instead you had to go and piss in the punchbowl. You’re too stupid to even know when you’re on top.”
The man with the rope smirked. “I’d like to be on top of her,” he said.
The other man took the cigarette out of his mouth and pointed to the other four townsfolk. “You do that shit again, Kyle, and they’ll dime you out to the mayor. Miss Van Sloane doesn’t like it when we get grabby and you damn well know it. Or do you want to spend another week shoveling shit alongside the helpers?”
“Might be worth it,” said the second man, eyeing Rachael. “Look at the cans on her. Bet she be—
”
Rachael kicked him in the balls.
She kicked him as hard as she could, and he doubled over, eyes bugging, a thin whistling wordless howl bursting from his mouth. She wanted to kick him again, harder, but a wave of dizziness and nausea slammed her back onto the dirt. The other four townies turned and came hurrying over, demanding to know what happened. The man who’d been kicked was entirely unable to manage a single articulate word.
The guy with the cigarette waved the others off. “It’s nothing. Kyle was making a joke and this little slut tried to get cute. Come on, help me get her up.”
They left Kyle on the ground and the five others crowded around Rachael, swatting aside her attempts to punch and kick, howling and cursing when she slipped one in. They slapped and punched her and finally dragged her by sheer force to her feet and as a group hauled her over to an empty post. She screamed and tried to bite them, but there were five of them and one of her, and they won.
Rachael never stopped fighting, though. Not for a moment.
— 28 —
THE SOLDIER AND THE DOG
In stories about heroes the good guy is often hamstrung by a moral dilemma. He knows he should kill the bad guys when he has a chance, but he has this code. Like Batman and the Joker. Batman’s supposed to be a champion of moral behavior, his being a violent vigilante notwithstanding. He won’t kill the Joker even when that psychopath tells him he should. Instead, he locks him up in Gotham’s prison or in Arkham Asylum, both of which are notorious for the frequency of super villains escaping. And the result? Batman feels smug about making the good moral choice, and then gets to wallow in self-absorbed angst when the Joker breaks out and slaughters a shit-ton of people. I bet some comic book scholar actually took the time to tally up how many people died because Batman didn’t use the razor edge of a batarang to end the reign of terror. Numbers are likely in the five digits. And don’t get me started on Superman.
Me . . . ?
I’m not Batman or Superman.
Once I had all the information the Rovers were likely to give me, I killed them. I did it quick and efficiently. No torture. Just a flip of life’s fragile little switch. They begged, of course, but aside from not being a superhero, I’m not a judge or jury. They were making a plea to the hangman.
Any twinges of regret? Sure. I’m not inhuman. But I did the math and decided that, thin as the human population was right now, we didn’t need them in the gene pool. Call it preventative surgery. Call it whatever. I had regrets because I’m still moral; but there was no hesitation because I’m practical and this was a war where the good guys were badly outnumbered.
I used the cut branches to hide them, and completed the extra step necessary to make sure they wouldn’t reanimate. The bikes were potentially useful, so I hid two on the other side of the road behind some dense bushes. The third one had to be sacrificed, though, because I figured I might need a grappling hook if I was going to sneak into the town. I busted it apart and used part of the frame to make a sturdy hook, tying it securely with rope from my pack. Be Prepared, that’s my motto.
Then I headed to Happy Valley.
The intel I’d gathered was interesting. And disturbing.
Happy Valley had been built as an upscale incorporated town with an exclusive population. Lawyers and money had to be involved in setting it up. Only invited persons could move there. There were just under three hundred residents, and an unknown number of “workers.”
When I asked what that meant, the Rovers told me that there was a special arrangement for anyone who wanted to live there. They had to agree to do manual labor—cleaning, farming, basic repairs, trash collection, and so on—in exchange for being able to live inside the walls. These workers also had to turn over their own supplies and needed to earn them back before they were allowed to leave. Or they could leave with no supplies at all and maybe some consequences.
“Those fuckers in there are all about consequences,” said Diver.
“What kind of consequences?” I asked.
Loki said, “You been to the grove?” He nodded in the general direction of the clearing where I’d found the corpses tied to posts.
“You’re saying the people of Happy Valley did that?”
“You see one guy with a big black beard? That was Buckeye. He was one of us. He was sent in as a, you know . . . spy and shit. We wanted the lowdown on the place ‘cause we heard some shady stories. He went in and for a couple of days was able to get word out to us. Wrapped notes around rocks and used a sling shot to send them over the walls. And then, poof—nothing. Messages stopped. We didn’t hear a peep for over two weeks. Then Snail and his crew found him dead in the grove. They’d tied him up and left him to starve to death. That’s fucked up.”
“And you didn’t take him down and bury him?” I asked.
He looked at me like I was from Mars. “Why? He was dead as shit.”
Nice guys. They said Buckeye managed to get a rough guess as to the amount of stores and supplies. There was a lot, but not enough for all those people. Maybe three months’ worth at half rations. And the workers were being fed quarter rations with a promise of thirds if they worked extra hours to earn it. Also, the residents were raising livestock in there. Rats, which were the principle source of protein for the workers, and dogs to feed the residents. There was a big kennel attached to a slaughterhouse and kitchen.
Not exactly sure which part of the story punched the worst buttons in my head—slave labor or dogs as cuisine. It was at least neck and neck. Maybe a little more the dog thing for me.
“What was your game plan once you raided the place?”
“Fuck . . . what else?” said Loki. “Food, supplies, walls, and a prime location. That’s going to be our kingdom, man. Roverville or some shit.” Then he smiled. “Besides, Buckeye said there’s some quality tail in there. Rich bitches who probably never had nothing more than pencil dicks. Most of them white and clean and, like, ready for it.” The son of a bitch actually winked at me. “You’re a tough motherfucker. Big Elroy would welcome you like a brother. Shit, you could have first crack at all that trim—”
Loki wanted to say more, but then he was dead. Diver, who had been nodding at what his friend was saying, never spoke another word.
Baskerville pissed on their corpses. Eloquent and appropriate.
As I walked away it amazed and disappointed me that a shared crisis did not encourage everyone to drop all their old bad habits and rise to stand together. It would be nice to believe that would be the defining characteristic cited in history books written years from now. Not that I believed it, but it would be nice. If there was a future. I really believe humanity could outlive and outlast the plague of the dead. It was groups like the Rovers who made me doubt if the human race had the collective right to survive. Fighting the urge to give in to a cold and unforgiving cynicism was a real bitch, and it felt like every day I lost a little ground. Days like today made me feel like I was sliding down a hill smeared with slippery human sewage.
It was twilight now and when I reached the tree line I could see lights coming from beyond the walls. Pale and flickering for the most part, which suggested firelight; but there were some of the colder and steady blue-white lights consistent with camping lanterns. The illumination wasn’t very evident and probably leaked out from under canopies. It barely reached the upper branches of the surrounding trees, and there were no clouds to reflect it. So, basically not a “come eat me” sign. That was about the first smart thing the residents had done.
Well, semi-smart. There was enough light for me to walk the entire perimeter of the place, staying inside the forest shadows, and get a really good idea of where and how to scale the walls.
Bottom line was this—they probably thought they’d all stayed safe because of the walls and their own brutal treatment of anyone who came knocking at the gate. I doubted anyone was ever allowed to leave. The walls kept out the dead, and the guard towers allowed for just enough vigilance to reinforc
e the distorted feelings of safety, and as the months went by, complacency set in. That brings with it a certain skewed and naïve logic: if it’s worked this long it must mean it’ll keep working. It falls somewhere between arrogance and optimism.
I retreated into the woods to eat, feed Baskerville, and think it through. The dog, free of his armor, shook himself all over and promptly found something disgusting to roll in. Not that I cared. We both stank. There’d been some cans of Vienna sausages and creamed corn in the Rovers’ backpacks. I opened them and split the goodies between us.
While we chowed down I looked at the big dog. “You don’t think Mr. Church is in there at all, do you?”
Being a dog, Baskerville just looked at me. His tail thumped twice.
“Me neither,” I said.
An owl began to hoot softly in the gathering dark, and a million crickets and cicadas sang their love songs. A deep sadness wrapped itself around me and I felt more alone than I had in months. I thought about Junie and the baby and my brother’s family. I thought about Top and Bunny and wondered if they were alive. If not, would they have been alive had I been there? Sure, that’s arrogance talking, but my inner parasites are neither kind nor helpful.
At one point I thought I saw Junie’s pale, lovely face watching me from the shadows, but when I went over it was just the owl sitting on a low branch. My movement chased it off and I shambled back to the desultory little fire I’d started for warmth.
The stars came out and looked coldly down at me. Baskerville came over and pushed himself against me until I wrapped my arms around him and buried my face in his fur. If I wept for a while, he did not seem to care.
***
In the morning I kicked dirt over the last coals of my campfire, strapped Baskerville’s armor on, checked that my gun was loaded, and went back to Happy Valley. I was not in the best of moods. So I figured, God help anyone who decided today was the day to fuck with me.
— 29 —
DAHLIA AND THE PACK
Still of Night Page 24