Backland: Insecurity (Book #2)

by Jeff Shelnutt

  You’re the navigator now, then?”

  “No. I’ll leave that in Sarah’s capable hands. There’s something I need to check on.”

  “We ain’t pulling in at no rest stop,” Pete jested. But he knew Cam would not make such a request unless the matter was important. At the designated junction, he steered Rheda in the required direction.

  The wagon’s occupants began to get whiffs of the stench five minutes before they saw the mass of circling buzzards.

  “Whatever’s dead, it’s big,” Pete commented.

  “Or,” Cam began, “it’s a lot of. Slow up. This is the road.”

  “Why do I get the feelin’ you want us to go toward that evil stench,” Pete grumbled as he dutifully tugged on Rheda’s reins and turned.

  After a half mile the travelers emerged from the trees lining both sides of the road. A dull white, four-storied complex that had previously been hidden from their view loomed on the other end of a long, grassy plain. It was laid out in four distinct wings forming a square. Rolls of razor wire circling the tops of the tall fences surrounding the structures were also evident, as were the guard towers dotting the facility’s perimeter. There was no movement to be seen and the carrion birds confirmed there would probably be none within either.

  “It looks like a camp,” Sarah observed aloud.

  “It was at one time,” Cam confirmed.

  As the wagon drew nearer, Sarah noticed the chain-link fences were no longer keeping anyone in or out. Whole sections of them were trampled down, gaping holes adorning others.

  “A camp this far out in the Backland?” Sarah wondered aloud.

  “Before it got put to use as a labor camp, it was a prison, sure ‘nuff,” Pete confirmed.

  “Way before. This building’s pre-war. Pull over here, Pete,” Cam instructed, motioning with his hand.

  By now the smell of rotting flesh was so acute that Rheda was reluctant to continue. Slip pulled his shirt up over his mouth. Sarah pinched her nose in an effort not to gag.

  “I want to take a closer look on foot.”

  Pete held Rheda’s reins as Cam jumped down, bow in hand. “What do you ‘spect to find besides a whole mess o’ death’?” Pete asked.

  “Be ready to go—fast,” Cam replied by way of answer.

  “I’ll stay here,” Slip volunteered in a muffled voice. Sarah nodded her willingness to do the same.

  Cam jogged the fifty remaining yards to the complex. They watched him as he followed the fence line around to the back until he was out of sight.

  An agonizingly slow fifteen minutes passed. Pete nervously eyed the tree line whose darkness had the ability to hide more than he cared to ponder. Sarah scanned the buildings and guard towers, trying to catch any sign of life.

  Keeping a consistent lookout for Cam, Slip suddenly exclaimed, “Here he comes.”

  They all looked to see Cam trotting back across the field. Arriving at the wagon pale and panting, he paused to catch his breath before climbing up.

  “Bad?” Pete queried.

  “Oh yeah.” Cam gasped between gulping in the slightly cleaner air.

  “How many?”

  “Six.”

  “Whose work?”

  “Certainly not local boys. This was a professional hit.”

  “What’s bringing so many buzzards?” Slip asked.

  Cam glanced at Sarah. Realizing she’d heard—and probably seen—worse, he said, “The bodies are strewn across the main courtyard. All of them have been disemboweled.”

  “Gutted, huh?” Pete grunted

  “Mm hmm,” Cam affirmed with a frown. “Left to die slowly....”

  “And painfully,” Pete interjected. “What is this place, Cam?” he demanded.

  Before Cam could answer, a chorus of howls pierced the air from the hills behind the prison.

  “Time to go,” Cam said.

  “Giddy up,” Pete called to Rheda. “I don’t wanna lose you to one of ‘em.”

  The wagon lurched forward, and Pete yanked the reigns to direct the mare on a course back toward the highway. They’d only gone a few yards when Cam observed, “We got company.”

  Pete’s gaze followed Cam’s finger, expecting to meet a pack of snarling wogs. Instead, a huge wild hog had emerged from a patch of brush nearer the complex. It sniffed the air and squealed in what sounded like anticipatory delight. But instead of taking off toward the prison, it jerked around and began a jaunt toward the wagon.

  Its giant head swung madly from side to side as it quickly picked up speed, pointed tusks menacingly jutting the air with each pounding step. The speed at which the quarter-ton creature moved was mesmerizing. The hog’s hind legs spewed a trail of dirt clods and tufts of grass, giving it the effect of being propelled along by some demonic force. Grunting and snarling, long, stringy beads of frothy saliva dripped and dangled, slapping the beast in the face. The scene was all the more horrifying because of the predator’s obvious intention to kill with each determined stride it took.

  “It thinks we aim to take its food,” Pete shouted as he lashed Rheda and she struggled to break into a trot.

  “Pete!” Cam yelled. “You’re on!”

  “Got it!” Pete replied, swinging up his shotgun and letting the stock settle into position on his shoulder.

  Sarah had intuitively reached over and grabbed the reins as her father let them drop from his hands. She fought to keep the panicking mare on course. The hog’s sheer size threw a shadow that almost touched the wagon, though it was still thirty feet away when Pete fired.

  Most of the buckshot slammed into the hog’s forehead. It screamed in agony and slowed, turning slightly as it did so. Slip saw that one of its eyes had been shattered, reminding him of a splattered tomato. The diversion was what Cam needed from Pete. As soon as the hog exposed his flank, Cam took the shot. But the moment he released the arrow, the wagon jerked under him, throwing the shot off target and sending Cam landing on his rear in the bed.

  The arrow still sunk deeply into the hog’s back thigh. The beast stumbled, but recovered swiftly, hobbling on, its fury impelling it forward as it closed the gap that was now only ten feet. If it struck the side of the wagon at its current speed, it would surely tip it over, exposing whoever found himself pinned beneath to possible impalement on the animal’s tusks.

  Cam immediately regained his feet, knocked an arrow and took aim, compensating for the wagon’s movement. Pete got another shot off, this time spraying the hog’s side. It lost more momentum under the force of the shot at close range. Cam released the second arrow. It pierced the hog’s neck the moment before the beast rammed the wagon with enough power to send the box rocking up on two wheels. Pete went tumbling out, but Sarah, ready for the impact, was able to keep her seat and a hold of the reins. The hog staggered backwards and fell on its haunches, letting out an anguished squeal, momentarily stunned.

  Cam struggled to keep his balance as the wagon dropped back to the earth, almost tossing him over the side. Rheda reared up on her back legs, terrified, whinnying and kicking violently at the air. The hog, though bleeding profusely from its neck wound and losing its fighting strength, managed to trot around the wagon. Just as Pete lifted his head, wide-eyes beholding the hog’s intentions, Slip leapt from the wagon and onto the animal’s wide back.

  “Slip!” Sarah yelled.

  Slip brandished a knife that he drove up to the stock into the hog’s neck, just below the skull. The animal screamed in rage and pain. Falling to its knees it rolled, flinging Slip sprawling through the air. His head clipped the back tire rim, his body crumpling to the earth. The hog grunted and gasped elusively for breath, good eye wide, staring blankly at Slip as its life ebbed away.

  “Slip!” Sarah called again even as Cam jumped out of the wagon and ran over to where his motionless body lay.

  “We gotta go!” Pete shouted, still crouched on the ground, scanning the area from where the hog had emerged. From Pete’s first shot, the whole encounter had barely
lasted a minute.

  Cam looked up to see two more hogs, both smaller than the first, but still lethal in their own right, on the way. He quickly hoisted Slip’s body up and laid him on top of the tarp-covered pile of goods in the wagon.

  Sarah cast an anxious gaze back and forth between Slip and her father as she held the reins steady. Cam ran over and pushed Pete up onto the bench seat beside Sarah.

  “Hey, watch your hands there,” Pete said testily.

  “Go!” Cam shouted.

  Releasing the reins, Sarah cried, “Hit ‘em up!”

  Rheda needed no more impetus than this. With a lurch, the braces tensed and the wagon jerked forward as the mare strained to run.

  Cam jogged behind, throwing backward glances at the coming hogs. The horse couldn’t outrun them while hitched to a loaded wagon. He was prepared to begin releasing arrows when the hogs got in reasonable range. But after a brief effort toward the human targets, the carcass of their mate distracted the pair. Stopping to investigate, the hogs tore into its stomach with carnivorous vivacity, their other prey all but forgotten…

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