Jason Frost - Warlord 04 - Prisonland

by Jason Frost - Warlord 04

  “Then what?”

  “Get some sleep.”

  She sighed angrily and laid her head back.

  Eric touched their clothing. Still damp. He stared into the fire, the flames cresting like a stormy surf. He thought of Tim, felt the hot pangs of agony in his heart for his lost son. Now he had someone else’s child to take care of, someone dragged out of childhood into the terrifying world of adulthood at its worst. And what bothered Eric most was knowing that Tim was going through the same metamorphosis himself. Only the man guiding Tim’s change was Fallows, the most ruthless, evil man Eric had ever known. To catch Fallows, Eric had to become like Fallows. Become just as ruthless, just as cruel. Sure, he was taking D.B. with him, but would he have if she hadn’t threatened to withhold Dodd’s whereabouts? He could have found the trail himself eventually, but losing how much time? He told himself this was a temporary condition, this Fallows-like attitude, a disguise he wore only until he freed Tim. But was it? Or was this who he really was? Had the kind and sympathetic professor, Dr. Ravensmith, been the disguise. Had the disaster in California only torn away that false disguise and revealed him as he really was? The same as Fallows.

  Eric tossed another piece of wood on the fire.

  He heard her voice softly drifting, barely audible above the crackling fire. It was a strong, clear voice, much better than Eric had thought. He looked over and her eyes were closed and he realized with some shock that she was indeed singing in her sleep. He dropped another log on the fire and listened as Eric—the father, teacher, husband—used to listen.

  “I came upon a child of God

  He was walking upon the road

  And I asked him where are you going

  And this he told me ...”

  Eric recognized the song. “Woodstock.” Annie had been there during the great festival. Eric had been in Vietnam, following Fallows deep behind the DMZ. He’d rather have been at Woodstock. In the same way ’Nam had shaped much of what Eric was, so had that weekend of music and affection shaped Annie. Eric had learned that his experience wasn’t anymore “real” or valuable than hers. In the end, they had both been changed by each other more than any single experience.

  But this wasn’t Woodstock. It wasn’t even California. It was a hunk of land with roaming bands of marauders, with encampments and fortresses and groups of people practicing everything from Satanism to cannibalism. Some groups strove for meaning, a cosmic sense of what had happened to them. Others just wanted clean water and food. The rest wanted whatever they could take, no matter what it was. Their religion was in the act of taking. That’s what gave them meaning.

  So much for Woodstock.

  Eric took the leather tongue he’d cut from Studebaker’s shoes and the rawhide laces from Teasdale’s boots and began fashioning D.B.’s weapon. Tomorrow he’d teach her how to kill with it. As he fashioned the weapon, he hummed along while she sang in her sleep.

  “We are Stardust, we are golden

  And we’ve got to get ourselves

  Back to the garden...”

  * * *

  SIX

  “Again,” Eric shouted from behind the tree. “Harder.”

  “It doesn’t work,” she complained.

  “What’s not to work? It’s a slingshot, not a nuclear reactor. Let me see how you’re holding that thing.” He came out from the protection of the tree and walked up to her.

  She held out her hand, the slingshot dangling. A plump round stone nestled in the leather shoe tongue. Either end of the tongue was tied to the rawhide shoelaces, one lace knotted and pinched between her first two fingers, the other end slipped over her thumb.

  “Looks right,” he said. “Now all you’ve got to do is cock your arm and thrust your hand past your ear, as if you were chucking a spear.”

  “I did that. A hundred times.”

  “Do it again.”

  “Maybe it would help if I twirled it over my head first, like in those Biblical movies. You know, David and Goliath.”

  “Try hitting that tree first. Then we’ll talk about twirling.”

  “You’re no fun.”

  Eric shook his head and walked back to the tree.

  “No fun!” she hollered after him, tilting her sunglasses up to see him.

  “Throw.”

  D.B. cocked her arm back, her tongue lodged in the corner of her mouth for concentration while she aimed at the tree about fifteen yards in front of her. Eric ducked behind the tree that was twenty yards behind her. She rocked slightly on her feet, then fired the rock with a snap of her arm. The stone flew up over the tree and out of sight.

  “I think you may have released too early,” Eric said.

  “Big deal.”

  “Try again.”

  She bent down, loaded another stone into the pouch. Only this time she began twirling it over her head, the slingshot swooshing overhead like a helicopter propellor. She giggled as she twirled. “This is more like it, eh R.R.?”

  Ever since she woke up that morning she’d started calling Eric R.R., short for Rock ’n Roll Man. Sometimes she’d just call him Rock or the R & R Man, or any number of combinations. She never said why. Eric didn’t ask.

  “Don’t twirl!” Eric warned.

  She released one end of the slingshot and the stone whizzed through the air like a runaway buzzsaw, finally colliding into the tree behind her, barely missing Eric’s head. Chips of bark sprayed Eric’s face.

  “Jeez, you all right?” D.B. ran to Eric.

  Eric brushed the splinters of wood from his shirt. “Fine.”

  “God, I didn’t mean it. You sure you’re okay?”

  “I’m sure.”

  She ran her fingers over the deep gouge the stone had cut into the tree trunk. “Wow. Powerful sucker, huh?”

  “Let’s try again.”

  “Yeah, right.” She walked back to the clearing. “I’m really sorry though, Doc Rock. Really.”

  “Maybe we should try something else,” he suggested. “Something easier.”

  “A gun?” she said hopefully.

  “This.” He reached into his pocket and removed the other weapon he’d made last night. He’d filled three small squares of hide with wet sand, tied the ends tight, and let the sun dry them until they were hard as rocks. Then he’d tied each to a section of shoelace, knotting the three ends together. The three hard sacks dangled, bumping each other.

  “What is it?” D.B. frowned. “It looks obscene.”

  “Bolas,” Eric explained. “The Chocktaw and Seminole Indians used them a lot. Throw them around somebody’s legs and it brings them right down. It’s also good for hunting waterfowl or small animals.”

  She shrugged. “Okay. Let’s try it. Bring on the waterfowl.”

  Eric gave her some instruction, showing her the proper method. “Throw it overhand in confined areas, sidearm when you’re in the open. For sidearm, keep the shoulders square and snap the wrist without following through. Got it?”

  “Simple.”

  An hour later she threw the bolas against the ground and jumped up and down on them. She begged Eric for the shotgun so she could shoot them.

  He handed her a stick about the size of a baseball club. “Here. This is your only hope.”

  “Oh yeah? Gimme your knife, Mr. Wilderness. Mr. Hickory Nuts. I’ll make my own damn weapon.”

  Eric handed her the Boy Scout knife with the broken tip expecting her to lash it to the club, fashioning a crude spear. But she didn’t. She took it and disappeared into the woods. He heard her sawing at a branch with the small knife. He sat down and waited.

  When she returned she hid whatever she’d made behind her back. “ ‘Turn around, bright eyes,’ ” she sang.

  Eric hesitated. He liked her, even admired the zany spunk with which she endured the kind of hardships he’d seen crush tough men. The singing, the nicknames. He understood. But he didn’t trust anyone anymore enough to expose his back.

  “Okay, then,” she said and started to pu
ll her T-shirt over her head. “They ain’t much, but if you want a cheap thrill ...” The shirt popped off over her head, leaving her standing in her bra. “You ever seen a couple eggs frying in a pan, you’ve seen more than you’re gonna see now.” She unhooked her bra.

  Eric sighed, turned his back.

  “Thanks,” she said with uncharacteristic sincerity. “I know that wasn’t easy, Rock ’n Roll Man. And not ’cause you wanted a peep show.”

  He heard the rustle of her shirt slipping back on, but he didn’t turn around. He’d wait until she wanted him to.

  “Aren’t you curious?” she teased.

  “About what you’re making? A tank?”

  “No, I mean about why I call you Rock ’n Roll Man.”

  “I’ve been called worse.”

  “You mean like Warlord?”

  Eric didn’t respond.

  “That’s worse to me,” D.B. said. “Warlord. Kinda suits you, but not entirely. Not like Rock ’n Roll Man or Doc Rock.”

  “You’re a little bit crazy, D.B.”

  She laughed. “You got me throwing rocks out of the tongue of a shoe and you’re calling me crazy.”

  Eric heard the sound of material tearing.

  “I’m like you, R.R., just as crazy as I have to be to stay sane. Know what I mean?”

  “Yes.”

  “I figured. Anyway, I like to compare people to the music I think they’re like. You’re like rock ’n roll, more than most of the guys who sing it.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, like I bet you’re a big fan of, let’s see, what’s your generation? Beatles, right?”

  Eric smiled. She was the age of most of his freshman students, with the same unwitting cruelty about age. Barely 34, he never considered himself old enough to be of any generation.

  “I’m right, aren’t I. All you guys went ape over the Beatles. My folks too. See, you’re not country music, that’s too corny. You’re not classical, too passive, too, um, genteel. Not jazz. Nope, you’re rock ’n roll. All that rage and energy hiding under a bass beat. A dark side waiting to explode like a guitar riff, like Jimi Hendrix.”

  Eric was glad she couldn’t see the flush spreading across his cheeks. The shock of recognition startled him. “What are you making?” he said.

  “This.” She stood up and walked around in front of him. Her sunglasses were pushed low on her nose. She smiled happily. “Now this is a slingshot.”

  Eric took what she’d made and turned it over in his hand. It was straight out of Tom Sawyer. A Y-shaped branch with the elastic sides from her bra cut and re-enforced with the shoelaces from the other slingshot.

  D.B. took it back, loaded a stone in the white elastic, aimed at the tree, stretched the sling back, and fired. The stone bounced off the tree trunk. She jumped in the air and grinned, “Well, Rock? Am I great white hunter or what?”

  Eric pushed the sunglasses up on her nose. “You’re ready to take on anybody.”

  “That mean we go? ‘The Long and Winding Road’?”

  “We go,” Eric said.

  She screamed and kept screaming until Eric caught up with her.

  The screams surprised him, not so much because they came suddenly and with such a ring of terror—he’d heard enough screams in the past months to be almost used to that. But not from D.B.

  She’d been tough through everything that had happened to her. Not just through the destruction of her family, her own physical abuse, and being dragged through the woods by Dodd. But now marching over rough terrain, eating squirrels and chipmunks, keeping up, complaining sometimes but making a joke of it, singing snatches of songs or answering Eric in song titles, calling him Rock ’n Roll Man. He had to remind himself she was only seventeen.

  Standing there by the side of the 5 Freeway leading to San Francisco, screaming at the top of her lungs, tears racing down her cheek, she looked even younger.

  Eric dropped his pack, raised his shotgun, and ran over to her.

  And saw the bodies.

  Three of them.

  A man, a woman, a girl.

  Naked.

  The girl was about sixteen or seventeen. The man and woman looked like her parents.

  Eric took one look at the bodies and jerked D.B. back. “Get away. Quick.”

  She looked stunned, allowing him to drag her away. She threw her arms around his neck and sobbed against his chest. “Getting you wet,” she sniffled, pushing herself away, rubbing the wet spot on Eric’s shirt.

  “No harm,” Eric said.

  “I don’t usually do this. Act like a kid and all.”

  “You are a kid, D.B.”

  “Un uh. Not if I want to survive, I’m not. Kids don’t have a chance around here.” She took out her dark sunglasses and put them on, covering her red eyes.

  Eric didn’t answer. He was thinking of Tim. Wondering whether he’d agree with D.B.

  D.B. scrubbed the tears from her face with her fingers. She nodded at the dead family. “What happened to them?”

  “Can’t be sure,” Eric said vaguely.

  She gave him a stern look. “C’mon, Doc Rock. Don’t go protective on me now. I’m sorry about the crying, but that’s over. Last time, I swear.”

  “Plague,” Eric said.

  “Huh?”

  “Can’t be sure, but it looks like plague. Bubonic, pneumonic, septicemic. Could be any of them. I don’t know enough about it to be certain.”

  D.B. backed away another couple of steps. She brushed the blond wisps of hair from her face. A missed tear rolled down her chin, magnifying freckles as it moved. “I don’t understand. Plague.”

  “Also called Yersinia pestis. Or Black Death. Dates back to the Bible, 1 Samuel, Chapters 5 and 6, around 1320 B.C. Next time we hear from it around 542 A.D. when it wipes out 100 million people. We’re talking about a time long before any population explosion. Nearly wiped the human race off the face of the earth. Somehow it didn’t. But it tried again around 1346 when it appeared during the siege of Caffa in the Crimea. By the time the plague got through chewing up Europe, one third of the population was dead.”

  “Yeah, I saw stuff like that in the movies. Throwing bodies in carts and stuff. Like in Forever Amber.”

  “Right.”

  “That was a long time ago,” she said uncomfortably.

  “Yeah, true. But try 1894. Canton and Hong Kong. Around 90,000 killed. Within 20 years it spread from southern China to the rest of the world, killing about 10,000,000 people.”

  “Jesus.” She started examining her hands as if looking for signs, scratching her palms. “How do you know if you’ve got it?”

  “Depends on what kind. Mostly fever, chills, vomiting, headaches, intolerance to light, pains in the back and limbs, sleeplessness—”

  “Stop. I’m starting to feel each one as you name it.”

  Eric smiled. “No song to cover the occasion?”

  “Nothing seems to quite fit. Except maybe, ‘Get Back.’ “

  Eric looked over at the bodies. “Good advice. We don’t know what kind it is. Bubonic is the most common, with swollen lymph nodes around the groin or neck. That’s what I think they had. In which case they aren’t especially contagious. But if it’s pneumatic, it can be transmitted through the air, through breathing. Gets in the lungs. Kills you pretty quickly.”

  “Maybe we should be hauling ass then.”

  “Good idea.”

  Eric took the time to burn the bodies. What bothered him was that they were nude with no backpacks around them. Obviously someone stole their clothing and goods after finding the bodies. If he examined the women, he might even find they’d been sexually abused after death. He’d seen quite a bit of that lately. He didn’t want to know.

  They hiked away from the road, the wind carrying the stench of burning flesh after them for several miles. Even after they were well out of range, Eric thought he still smelled the acrid scent hovering about him like a cloud of flies.

  “Here,” D.B. cri
ed out, pointing at the ground.: “Squirrel tracks. Right?”

  Eric examined them. He’d been teaching her a few things about tracking and was pleased she’d recognized the markings. The four toes up front, the five in the rear. The tiny claw marks, the pads. Eric had noticed them earlier but had said nothing.

  “Well?” she asked expectantly. “Am I right or am I right?”

  “You’re right. Squirrel tracks.”

  “All right, Doc Rock. We eat tonight.” She unfastened the slingshot from her waist. “A couple McSquirrel burgers comin’ right up.”

  Eric put his hand on her arm. “Afraid not, D.B. No more squirrels. In fact, no more animals, not from around here. Not for a while.”

  “Whata ya mean? I’m hungry.”

  “We’ll eat. But not animals.”

  She gave him a funny look, then a compassionate nod. “That got to you back there, huh? Burning those folks. The smell and all.”

  Eric laughed. “Yeah, it got to me. But that didn’t turn me into a vegetarian. The reason we’re staying away from animals, especially squirrels, which are of the rodent order, is because they carry fleas. And fleas carry the plague. A flea bites you, then regurgitates bacilli into your blood.”

  “Yeech. You mean it pukes into your vein or something?”

  “Something like that. Ordinarily, fleas on wild animals won’t bite humans unless they have to, like if you kill their host.”

  “Their host? You make it sound like a damn party.”

  “More like a feast. Anyway, we’ve got to especially stay away from cats or dogs since the fleas they carry generally are more apt to carry human-biting fleas.”

  “What will we eat? Roots and junk?”

  Eric smiled. “Something nutritious.”

  “Birds?” she asked hopefully.

  “No. Too hard. You should never expend more energy to capture food than the amount of energy that food will supply.”

  “No animals, no roots. What’s left?”

  “Lots of things.”

  They slept that night without eating. Just before dawn, Eric woke D.B. and they hiked to a nearby field of tall weeds.

  “At night,” Eric whispered as they crept closer, the sun curling up over the horizon, “they climb the stalks and cling near the top. In early morning they’re still chilled and dormant, easy to pick.”