Jason Frost - Warlord 04 - Prisonland

by Jason Frost - Warlord 04

  Eric stared at each of the women. Riva smirked, her hip thrust out as if posing for a magazine. Maggie looked indifferent, perched on the edge of the table. Lynda stood with powerful arms on her wide hips.

  “I’m listening,” Eric sighed. “What’s your proposition?”

  * * *

  TEN

  “You were a big help in there,” Eric said.

  D.B. smiled. “I thought I played the shell-shocked orphan pretty damn good.”

  “Well, You played it well.”

  “Thanks. I thought I did too.”

  Eric paced around the room. He tried the door for the tenth time. It was still locked.

  “Where are we?” D.B. asked.

  “Alcatraz.”

  “I know it’s Alcatraz for Chrissake. I mean where on Alcatraz? This doesn’t look like any prison I’ve seen in the movies. Where are the bars? Where you’re supposed to bang your tin cup when you yell for the screws?”

  “This is probably the warden’s house.”

  “Like where Robert Redford lived in Brubaker?”

  “What did you do besides watch movies?”

  “What else was there to do in Fresno? You had a date, you went to the movies or a party. Usually both. Then I had my cheerleading. Don’t laugh.”

  “I wasn’t.”

  “Yeah, well don’t. Cheerleading was good training for the stage. Helped make my voice strong for my singing.”

  Eric sat on the floor of the barren room. “Come here.”

  D.B, stood in front of him. “What?”

  He patted the ground next to him. “Here.”

  “They said they’ll be right back.”

  “So?”

  She shrugged. “Okay, if that’s what turns you on.” Instantly she pulled her T-shirt off and started to tug off her shorts. “But it’ll have to be a quickie.”

  “Jesus,” Eric said, grabbing her wrists before she could pull her shorts off any further. “I’ve never seen anyone so anxious to take off their clothes.”

  “Isn’t that what you wanted?”

  “No, damn it. I wanted you to sit down. So we could talk.”

  “Talk?” She laughed her crackling cricket laugh and hiked her shorts back up to her waist. She pulled the T-shirt back on and sat down. “Sorry,” she smiled. Then a look of concern spread across her freckled face. She nodded at his crotch. “You aren’t, uh, damaged are you? Like it doesn’t work or something?”

  Eric smiled. “No. I’m fine.”

  “You gay? I mean, it’s all right if you are. I don’t care or anything. You want me to sing Judy Garland songs, I will.”

  “No, I’m not gay.”

  She nodded slowly, thinking. “Don’t you ever get horny?”

  Eric laughed. “Never.”

  “Really?” She was amazed. “How do you do it?”

  “Self-hypnosis.”

  “Wow. Like with a swinging watch?”

  “Something like that. Only I just imagine that Ward Cleaver is always looking over my shoulder. And I try not to do anything he’d disapprove of.”

  “Ward Cleaver? Wasn’t he a president or something?”

  “Should have been. He was the Beaver’s dad in Leave it to Beaver.”

  “Oh yeah, I’ve seen that. Yeah, I see what you mean now. And it works, huh? Keeps you from getting excited?”

  Eric nodded.

  She laughed loudly, slapping his arm playfully. “What kind of jerk do you take me for? I know when you’re kidding me.”

  Eric’s tone was serious. “Then maybe you can tell me when you’re kidding me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why wouldn’t you speak before, when those women were here.”

  “I had nothing to say.”

  “Come off it, D.B. They might have killed me.”

  “I would’ve talked if I’d had to.”

  Eric tilted her chin up so their eyes met. “Why the dumb act?”

  “Protection. As long as people don’t think you’re a threat they leave you pretty much alone. If you don’t speak then they think you don’t hear and don’t think. They treat you like a doll or a pet, something not real. But at least they don’t kill you.”

  “But these are women, they’re not like those men you were with.”

  D.B. laughed harshly. “So they’re women. You think that makes them any less ruthless?” She dug the choke collar out of her waistband and slipped it over her head again. “You think the guys who put this here were the only ones to abuse me. Once they captured another girl, about twenty. They forced us to do stuff together while they watched. Later that night she tried to strangle me so she could steal my goddamn shoes.”

  “What happened?”

  “The others heard the noise and woke up. They watched, cheering us on, betting on who’d win. Like it was a goddamn football game or something. They didn’t try to stop us. Finally I bashed her head in with a rock. I don’t think she was dead, but they left her there anyway when we moved on the next day.” Her voice became thick and quivering. “You know what was weird about the whole thing?”

  “What?” Eric said.

  She tapped her New Balance running shoes. “These. They were a size too small for her. They wouldn’t have fit her anyway. Thing is, she knew it; she’d asked me about the size earlier. Yet she was willing to kill me for them anyway.” She sighed. “What do you make of that, Rock ’n’ Roll Man?”

  The lock to the door clicked and the door swung open. Maggie Shreeve walked in alone, a holster slung across her chest bandito-style. An old single-action Colt .45 was jammed into the holster. She looked at the two of them on the floor and gave a disapproving frown, as if she’d caught them in the middle of something. “Ready?”

  Eric turned to D.B. “Ready?”

  She stared dully at the ground, not speaking.

  “Tferrific,” he said, rising. Then to Maggie, “Let’s have the grand tour. And maybe you can let me know just what it is you want me to do?”

  “That’s the lighthouse,” Maggie pointed out. “Doesn’t work anymore. We scavenged the parts for other things.”

  “What about water?”

  She pointed to the huge water tower. “That holds enough to take care of us. There’s only a couple hundred of us. What the rain doesn’t replenish we bring over from the mainland.”

  “What about Thor and his men?”

  “We don’t go there. We go down the western coast. It’s a little tricky because that’s close to the Halo, but it’s worked so far. We have enough water to grow most of the food we need. We even have some cattle and chickens we keep over in the cell blocks.”

  “A chicken in every cell, huh?”

  She didn’t crack a smile. Instead she continued along, pointing at the buildings, identifying them. Eric nodded, taking it all in, waiting for the proposition. D.B. strolled silently beside him, maintaining her dazed expression and dumb act.

  “The women with children live over in the guards’ barracks. The rest of the women are divided between the guards’ barracks and the warden’s house. Depends on how they feel about kids. Over there is the power house. That’s where the single men stay.”

  “How many men?” Eric asked.

  “A dozen,” she shrugged, as if the number were insignificant. “Some pretty old, some pretty useless. A couple of them know their way around.”

  “How come they weren’t on the raiding party that went after the doctor?”

  Maggie spun and glared at him. “Why? You saying if men had gone they wouldn’t have made the same mistake?”

  “No. I’m asking why they didn’t go when it would have been easier for them to slip through Asgard without as much risk.”

  She stared into his eyes, searching for something. Her own dark eyes glittered with moisture. “We didn’t ask them.”

  “Why not?”

  Maggie shaded her eyes from the bright orange haze to the west. It looked like the sun was sitting on the ocean there, curtained behi
nd the Halo. Her smooth brown skin took on an orangish hue from the sun reflecting off the water. “Be dark soon. We’d better hurry.”

  “What happens when it gets dark?”

  “Nothing, so far. We have to triple the guards around the perimeter of the island. Anything moves after dark, we kill it.” She smiled at Eric.

  “I’ll remember.”

  They walked on. Eric watched Maggie take the lead, her long legs lost in the baggy man’s jeans she wore. The pants were so big around her slender waist that she had a rope looped through them and tied at the front like a duffle bag. The pants legs were rolled up to mid-shin. Her shirt was a tattered man’s Oxford with a hole over the heart that had obviously been made by a bullet. The powder burns and blood had not come completely out despite the obvious scrubbing. Her white bra showed through the bullet hole. He watched her trim body march stiffly ahead until he felt D.B.’s elbow digging into his rib.

  “Move it,” D.B. whispered gruffly.

  “It speaks,” Eric grinned.

  “What?” Maggie said, turning around.

  Eric stopped walking. “You’ve been trooping me around this place for over an hour. I now know where everyone lives. I’ve seen your wonderful vegetable gardens. I’ve seen your infirmary. I’ve shaken hands with some of your elderly. I’ve seen the kids playing hopscotch in the prison yard. I’m impressed. You’ve done a hell of a job. No cases of plague.”

  “Yet. But we can’t count on that, not with the trips to the mainland to get water. We’re bound to pick it up sooner or later. One flea bite is all it takes and it could wipe out the whole settlement. Everything we’ve built.”

  “So what do you want from me? To kidnap the real doctor?”

  “Partly.” Darkness was closing quickly, washing away the orange tint from the sky. Dozens of armed guards were walking to take their posts along the shoreline.

  “What’s the other part?”

  She pointed across the bay at Asgard. The bright fires that came from there were almost festive compared to the prickly little campfires that dotted the rest of the city. It was alluring, like the Strip in Las Vegas, a place of light and celebration. “That’s why we’re out here in the first place.”

  “Asgard?”

  Maggie nodded. “That’s where most of us used to live. It was a pretty good settlement, even better than here. We’d gathered most of the necessities. Had a good supply of food and water. Even had a school going. We were rebuilding. It wouldn’t be like the old San Francisco, but that was all right. Maybe even good.”

  Eric leaned up against the stone wall around the prison yard and listened. D.B. had even looked up.

  “Anyway, everything was going pretty well. We’d had a couple cases of plague, but my husband was a doctor, navy trained, and he knew what to do.”

  Eric nodded encouragement, though he knew the story before the telling. Everyone had a story, a bad one, a story about great loss, about horrors they’d never expected to see, about guilt over surviving when those they loved died. The responsibility of surviving was too great for many. Eric had seen their bodies too, the wrists slashed wide open, lying limp on ground made muddy with blood. Some with a book open across their chest, a favorite photograph by their head. Some looking relieved.

  Maggie continued. “Considering the circumstances, we had done a damn good job. Then Thor and his men came. It was like those Indian attacks you see in movies, the way they swooped down on us. Most of the women, children, and the elderly were put on the boats we’d been using for fishing, and set off for Alcatraz. The men stayed behind to fight. Stupid when you think about it. We could have fought too, though there weren’t that many weapons really. Still, we should have stayed, been given the chance to fight. But in the crisis and confusion we all reverted to our old roles. The men herded us onto the boats toward safety while they stayed behind to be slaughtered by Thor’s men. It didn’t take long.” She took a deep breath, stiffened her back. “But that was then and this is now. Thor and his convict buddies have been trying to get to us ever since. We took most of the boats, and what we didn’t take our men sank. A few men survived the battle and made it out here on rafts. But for Thor to bring enough men out here to take us, he’s going to need boats. Lots of them. So they’re scavenging some, trying to build others. Every day they get stronger, closer.”

  “This is a tough place to take. It’ll cost him a lot of men. Hundreds I’d guess.”

  “But he’ll take it, right? Right?”

  Eric shrugged. “Yes.”

  “That’s the way we figure it too. He doesn’t care how many men he loses, he can always get more. But women are worth something. We’ve gone back to the beginning of time: women as chattel.”

  “What do you want from me?”

  “You’re this hotshot Warlord. You’ve got a military background. We want you to help us fight them.”

  “No.”

  Maggie looked surprised. “Just like that? No?”

  “Just like that.”

  “Why?”

  “You can’t win, that’s why. He has the manpower and, as you said, he doesn’t care about the cost.”

  “We’ll pay you?” she said with a cynical sneer. “What’s your price?”

  Eric started to walk off. D.B. followed him. He stopped and turned back, facing Maggie. “How soon will Thor’s fleet be ready?”

  “From what we’ve been able to observe,” she said. “It’s ready now.”

  * * *

  ELEVEN

  “You’re a maggot. The same scum that my husband died fighting. You belong over there with the other slime just like you. Calling you a vulture would be too kind. You’re more like a wild pig, burrowing your snout into the rotting entrails of festering corpses, feeding off the misery of others.” Maggie stormed off toward the warden’s house, leaving Eric and D.B. standing by the wall. She’d only gotten a few feet away when she stopped, whirled back, and hollered. “The day we need jackals like you to help us is the day I surrender to Thor!” And off she marched again.

  “Whew!” D.B. said. “She’s really got your number, huh?”

  Eric gave her a cold look.

  “She sure was pissed. I didn’t think Miss Prim and Proper had it in her.”

  “Shut up, D.B.”

  “First you want me to talk, practically begging me to, now you want me to shut up. Make up your mind.”

  Eric walked away at a brisk pace.

  D.B. jogged after him. “Hey, where we going?”

  “We?”

  “Sure. We’re partners.”

  “Uh huh. My faithful companion.”

  “Silent companion.”

  Eric shook his head, but smiled.

  “Besides,” D.B. continued, “me being quiet makes everyone think you’re smarter. Just think of me as a kind of agent. Publicity agent.”

  “They all think I’ve abused you so badly you’re either too afraid to speak or too damaged. Great publicity job you’re doing.”

  “Hey, haven’t you heard, there’s no such thing as bad publicity.”

  “Since meeting up with you, I’ve heard just about everything.”

  D.B. smiled widely as if Eric had just paid her the greatest compliment of her life. “Like Karen Carpenter said, ‘We’ve Only Just Begun.’ ”

  They hiked up the incline and skirted the patch of garden where tomatoes hung bright and plump from vines. Two women with rifles guarded the unfenced plot of land. Both were thin, though the shorter one’s skin sagged a bit as if her weight loss had been rather sudden and involuntary. They both warily eyed Eric and D.B. until they’d passed the garden. Eric had no doubt that if he’d picked a single tomato, they’d have shot him.

  “Stay close and don’t touch anything,” he told D.B.

  “Where we going?”

  “Power house.”

  “That’s where the men stay, right?”

  “The single men.”

  D.B. giggled. “That black gal too much for you, Doc R
ock? Need to hang around with the guys? Talk man-talk?”

  “You don’t have to come.”

  “You kidding? I wouldn’t miss it.” She lowered her voice and walked with an exaggerated swagger. “How about them Rams, guys. Really toss a pigskin around, can’t they?” She laughed. “How’s that?”

  “Manly.”

  “Yeah?” She seemed pleased.

  They heard the music and singing before they reached the stone building. It was a woman’s voice accompanied by someone on the guitar. She was singing “Desperado,” but Eric couldn’t be sure the guitarist was playing the same song.

  “What’s that awful wailing?” D.B. said as they neared the door. “Someone step on a cat’s tail?”

  Eric held the door open for her. “Maybe it’s open auditions. This could be your big break, kiddo.”

  D.B. hooked a thumb over her shoulder where Maggie Shreeve stood near the garden talking to the two women guards. They were all looking at Eric. “Or yours,” D.B. grinned.

  “Christ,” D.B. complained. “Is that what passes for singing around here? She missed about five notes in just one phrase.” She’d said it quietly, but a few people turned around and she immediately went into her dumb act, staring blankly at the floor. Those in the crowd who’d heard looked around her to see who’d said that, but eventually gave up and returned to their conversation or just listening.

  Eric strolled around the perimeter of the crowd. There were about a hundred people there, though only about eight were men. The rest were women of all ages, mostly under forty, and children of both sexes ranging from late teens on down to about ten. Occasionally, Eric would catch a few of them staring at the two of them and whispering when they thought he didn’t know, but most of the time they just kept talking and listening to the music. Some were dancing, mostly women with women. The room had a pleasant casual air about it and people seemed to be having a genuinely good time. Eric was impressed; he hadn’t seen much of that lately.

  Over in the corner, with a picnic table overflowing with people, a man sat at the head of the table, obviously in control of the group. Women sat on either side of him and he took turns whispering seductively in their ears, licking them, fondling them. Both women enjoyed the attention, laughing at everything he said. Yet, despite his attention to those women and the other followers at his table, his eyes never seemed to leave Eric. Eric felt them on him all the time as if they were hooked into his skin, an invisible wire connecting the two of them.