by J. Thorn
“Why do they follow Jonah?”
Loner thought of the leader of the tribes. Why did they follow him? What was it about the man that made people jump when he commanded?
“Because he has made all the decisions so far.” Loner straightened his back, feeling satisfied with the response. ”He has been lucky in his decisions, I guess.”
“Your guess is not helpful.” The woman’s words oozed from her lips like blackened bile. “He is a great leader, is he not?”
“Yes, I guess he is. But I did not wish to follow his path anymore.”
“I do not care what path you think you follow.”
Loner closed his eyes, but kept his head bowed low. What did this vile creature want? Would his arm become her next meal? If he wanted to live through this, he knew he would need to give her more. But what?
“Does he have a woman?”
“Yes, he does.” Loner blurted the response, relieved to have a question he could answer. “He has a wife, and he has two children as well, and another that is, I think, adopted. Seren is her name. His wife is Sasha, and his daughter is Keara. His son...I think his name is Gid, but I’m not sure. It may be different.”
“From whom does he descend?” the mistress asked, not even pausing to give him time to think.
“His father was...I can’t remember the name. He was their chieftain before. I believe he was a member of the T’Yun. I think.” Then the man’s name came back to him. He’d heard Jonah mention it once. “Judas! Judas. That was his father.”
A hiss of surprise came from the darkness. Loner froze.
“I know this name.” The woman continued. “The name comes from the very heart of the T’Yun of old. Tell me, this Jonah. Will he fight the warriors I send? Is he a warrior or just a leader?”
It was an odd question and Loner realized how little she understood about the tribes. “He is both, well—known for his skill with an ax.”
The woman didn’t reply, and time seemed to drag on for hours even though Loner knew that only a few moments had.
“Tell me more.”
Loner heard movement coming from the other side of the pile of furs, from the woman.
“I don’t know what else I can tell you.” Loner had raised his voice in a creeping state of panic, speaking louder than he had intended.
She came closer, and he could feel hot breath upon his forehead and an even stronger stink of rotting death.
“Please, I’ve told you all I can. Ask me anything and I’ll try to answer.”
“You have said enough. Do not need to speak again. Your heart will tell me the rest.”
Loner’s eyes flashed open and he started to look up, taking a deep breath that stopped in his throat as a sharp pain erupted in his chest. He shuddered, his hands trembling in the ropes that were pulled tight. He tried to cry out, to plead, but nothing came. His throat was locked shut, and the pain was excruciating. Then he looked down, his vision blurred but then cleared for a moment, and he realized why the air was stuck in his throat.
The knife was long as she withdrew it, maybe eight inches sharp and serrated. It was not an old knife, but something new and perfect. She had impaled him all the way up to the hilt of the blade, and now he saw blood spurting out in a torrent as the shiny blade pulled free. He looked the woman in the face, as his vision of the world began to blur once more. He would die, but he would die facing this creature, not looking at the floor like an obedient dog.
“Wretched,” he said, and it was all that he could force from his lips.
The woman’s eyes flashed with anger for a moment, but then she smiled. “Now your heart’s blood will tell me everything else I need to know.”
Chapter 30
“Come this way,” said the tall man in the gray uniform.
Leta scowled at him, and finished cramming her meal in her mouth with three quick spoonfuls before she pushed the empty bowl away.
He waited, grimacing as she licked her lips. “Time for us to move you to your new quarters.”
Several other uniformed officers ushered people out of the hall toward the corridor, all of them repeating the same words as if reading them from a cue card.
New “quarters,” thought Leta. What exactly did that mean? She preferred to be out there in the open air, even if the Valk stalked the lands. She could hide out there. In here, she felt trapped — claustrophobic. But they'd all agreed, hadn't they? This was what Jonah had wanted. The old and the young out of his hair and from under his feet, and with good purpose. She supposed. But Leta believed they could have just as easily armed the young and the old. Let them joint the fight. She wasn’t foolish enough to believe they’d be war heroes, but good defenses could be built with numbers.
She joined the queue moving toward the doors, and out into the corridor as another slow trudge began, this time heading to wherever in this warren these weirdos were going to hide them. She sighed. She should have felt grateful, but was struggling with it. For some reason, these people in the base had offered to take in the elderly and the young to keep them protected, while Jonah fought the real battle outside. Why would they feel so compelled to be the caretaker of his clan while the war raged?
She'd seen some of those who had been sent inside, and it didn’t make sense. Some that they had considered too old were still fit enough to fight. She thought she was, and there were definitely those amongst the young who were old enough to wield arms. But who was she to question the decisions of those in charge? She was fortunate that Jonah hadn't turned his back on her in Wytheville months ago, when she'd asked if his clan would take people such as her. She had seen his reluctance, but also his compassion and his faith in her had changed her life.
She would have died, she thought, along with all the other oldies that were with her at that time. Maybe not that year, but one day some marauding band would have found them, and they wouldn't have stood a chance. Hiding among the clans and keeping to yourself wouldn’t work forever.
Now here she was being ushered underground into a secret bunker where she would be kept safe, while the real warriors did their best to fight off the Valk. For an hour they trundled, or so it seemed. They headed along corridor after corridor, sometimes down stairs, sometimes up, until eventually they were led into a tunnel.
As Leta passed the man at the entrance to the tunnel, he told them to keep moving. She frowned and glanced at the archway as she was passing through. A huge metal gate had been pulled back against the wall on which the officer leaned, but she noticed that the lock and opening mechanism were on the back of the door.
Very strange, she thought. Though she couldn’t quite understand why it bothered her, there was something odd about that. The tunnel seemed much more dilapidated and deteriorated than the other areas of the base, and much less maintained than the corridors she’d seen so far.
Where the hell are they leading us? She hustled forward, not wanting to slow down the back of the line which was only two dozen or so people behind her. She noticed a point of light ahead of them.
Were they being led somewhere on the surface? At least she’d seen light which meant it had to be either on the surface or comfortable, not like some dank cell beneath the earth. Leta jumped, surprised to hear a grating noise behind them. She turned to see the officer pushing the metal door shut, along with several clunking noises as bolts were slid into place.
Darkness descended upon the tunnel, and people began to cry out.
“Hey! Turn on the lights?”
“Where are we?”
“Why are you putting us here?”
Leta didn’t have the answers, only more questions rolling through her head as she started to push through the people ahead of her. Many of them had stopped moving and the long procession of older clan members came to standstill.
“Let me through,” she said, slowly pushing her way past dozens and dozens of puzzled looking people. The place reeked of mold and a dank wind current slowly pushed through. The only light in the tunn
el came from some dim strip lights, placed about thirty feet apart. Other than that, it was dark.
Other than that light up ahead, she thought. As she got closer she frowned, and a terrible foreboding feeling began to build in her stomach. She arrived at the end of the tunnel, where a dozen elderly clan folk stood peering out of the open tunnel doorway.
To the outside.
Leta stepped forward and moved into the entrance.
“What is going on?” she said aloud.
“Don’t know,” said a man nearby. “This don’t look like some bunker.”
She looked outside, seeing a landscape consistent with what she’d seen on the base including flat concrete roads leading in various directions, all of them fractured by overgrown grass. Leta stepped out into the light.
This wasn’t somewhere safe in the bunker and Leta began to feel a chill on the back of her neck. She noticed that a few of the others had followed her out onto the steps of the entrance. The steps led up onto a raised platform — a large block of concrete, maybe fifteen feet high with a metal stairway leading down onto the road below. From the platform she could see about a quarter of a mile away, where the buildings of the base began. The fence surrounded the base like a dead serpent and Leta realized they were no longer inside of it.
“This isn’t inside the base.” An old man nearby spoke with a gravelly voice, using a long wooden staff to walk.
“No,” said Leta. “We’re back outside, on the other side of the base, in the fields beyond, right on the edge.”
She turned and looked in the other direction. Another half a mile of roads and open grass separated them from what appeared to be the back perimeter fence, a tall metal barrier that held back the progression of the forest. There were no gates.
“What are they doing?” asked a woman nearby. “I thought we were going inside the bunker to somewhere safe.”
“We were going to join the young ones,” said another.
“They lied to us.” Leta hadn’t wanted to speak the truth but she couldn’t help herself.
Everyone stopped murmuring and turned to listen to her.
“We were told we were going to join them. We were told we’d be kept safe. They lied to us. They brought us in here under a lie.”
“But what of the young? Why would they want the young?” asked another man.
Then it occurred to her. “They only wanted the young all along.” The words came out in a hushed, low voice. “The warriors were sent out to die fighting the Valk and us old folk are being offered up like cattle put to pasture.”
“They wouldn't do that, would they?” asked a woman a few feet away.
Leta pointed to the fence where she could now see movement beyond in the trees. Dark figures moved towards the perimeter fence and began to scale it, and not just a few. She saw figures all along the outer perimeter. Dozens and dozens, maybe hundreds of them. Valk.
“They sent us out here so the Valk could take us.” She’d spoke the conclusion twice and yet it still seemed impossible.
“What do we do?” said the tall man nearby. “We can't stay here. They will be on us in minutes.”
“No,” Leta said, “and we can’t hide in that tunnel. They’d slaughter us a few at a time until they reach the gate and we'd have nowhere to run. Pass the word back, quickly. Get everybody moving.”
“Where?”
“Back to Jonah.” Leta looked around and started forward, away from the Valk that were climbing the fence. “Tell them to hurry. Time to run.”
Chapter 31
“It's chaos down there.” Abernathy raised one hand as he spoke, striding into the council chamber.
Katrina sat at the head of the meeting table, flicking through a pile of papers six inches thick. Abernathy stopped at the other end of the table, hovering and waiting for the woman to respond.
“We never expected this process to be simple,” said Katrina. “There were bound to be problems. It will take them time to adjust, that is all.”
“That's not all.” Abernathy shook his head and began to pace along the edge of the table, back and forth. “Seren and Gideon and the rest were released back into the main area, where the others are, and now they all know that we imprisoned them by force.”
Katrina stopped shuffling through the papers and looked up. “It’s something that will take time for them to understand. They will thank us for it one day.”
Abernathy huffed and rubbed a hand across his forehead. “They won't. It’s close to a riot down there. Most of them that came willingly before are now demanding to be set free. They’re trashing the furniture, Katrina. Very soon the area will be a complete mess. Everything will be destroyed.”
“What would you have me do? We have to see this out. The plan that we had envisioned for this place is coming to fruition.”
He leaned on the nearest chair. “Was it really intended for this? Records suggested that this place was to be filled with the young before a catastrophic event, not hundreds of years after one.”
“We've had to improvise somewhat, yes,” said Katrina, “but we still have to stick to the plan.”
“Do you really think so?” Abernathy stared into Katrina’s eyes, unblinking. “You don't think that maybe we should consider an alternative?”
“An alternative to Project Valkyrie is what you mean. Don’t be coy. Say what you mean.”
“Show me in the documents that the original intention of that project was to unleash a cannibalistic, murdering horde upon the few survivors of the catastrophe,” said Abernathy. “And hundreds of years after the project was thought lost.”
“There are some differences. I’ll acknowledge that.”
“Oh come on Katrina.” Abernathy shook his head, smiling as a way to ease his own anxiety about the situation. “A cannibalistic horde. I've seen what little we have about Project Valkyrie. They were meant to re-emerge after thirty years, not hundreds. It also says to seek out like—minded warriors and rebuild the forces required to re-establish the government. Somewhere along the line, over the centuries, their purpose has been twisted, and instead of up gathering up warriors they’re eating them.”
Katrina opened her mouth to speak, but Abernathy had lost all patience and interrupted her. “And what happens after they've killed everyone? All that will be left is them and us. Who do you think they’ll hunt down then?”
“The project documents suggest that Project Valkyrie will flare out after its purpose has been fulfilled.” Katrina spoke in slow, heavy annunciation as if explaining something simple to a child. “The creators built in control mechanisms, things to ensure that the project will not survive once the original purpose has been achieved.”
“But they're not following the original purpose. They’re not trying to rebuild civilization, they’re eating it. Now they're here, on our doorstep. Once they've finished slaughtering everyone on the surface, they’ll come for us, and we may have defenses, but it won't hold forever. There are too many of them, and that's without the Cygoa to add to it.”
Both Katrina and Abernathy sat quietly, the only noise in the room an exhaust fan with a loose blade. It clanked repeatedly like the sound of a prisoner rapping on the bars of his cell.
“What Seren has suggested makes sense,” said Abernathy, ignoring the fan and breaking the silence. “She may be young, but she is wiser than her years.”
“She wants us to take up arms.” Katrina sighed. “She wants us to send all our forces out. All of our armed guards out to face the Valk and vanquish them, then we face the Cygoa as well.”
“What choice do we have? I don't believe you think we should sit here and let this happen, not really.”
“I still believe in following the original plan this base was set up for.”
“A plan that is going to fail,”
Katrina glowered at him. She spun in her chair and looked at the ceiling while Abernathy leaned in closer.
“I don’t want it to fail,” he said. “That's never what I
wanted, but the original plan you speak of is not set in stone. It was meant to happen hundreds of years ago, a couple of decades after the disaster, but it didn't. It couldn't because whoever built this base and occupied it during the disaster failed to bring the families in that would reoccupy the surface when it was made safe. Those kids down there. They know that we invited them in, and now hold them captive while the rest of their people die. They will never cooperate with us. They won't seed the civilization that you want to rebuild.”
Katrina raised her hands and shook them at Abernathy. “I don't see how we could have done it any other way. Of course I don’t like what's happening out there.”
“I did wonder about what you like and what you don’t. I never thought you capable of it, but here we are and none of the other councilors have the guts to come here and talk to you, but I knew that I needed to. Somebody had to say something. Somebody had to ask you to stop. Somebody had to ask you to listen to Seren’s suggestions. We need to arm the young. We need to not only let them go, but we need to go with them. We need to stop hiding in a bunker and finish this, face the Valk and eliminate them. Stop the slaughter, and then, if we must, face the Cygoa. Though, I'm hoping that can happen after we broker some form of peace among the remaining clans. But we will face that challenge when we come to it.”
“But if we do what you suggest, it's not a reset. It wasn't the original plan.”
Abernathy raised his voice. “To hell with the original plan. There can be no reset, not like what you have in mind, but you're not seeing things the way I think you should.”
“Explain,” said Katrina.
“The reset required a generation that could be taken out of the world, so that the one that followed could step out into the new world re-educated and with a different outlook — so that there wouldn't be the conflicts that caused the catastrophe in the first place.”
“This is what I've been saying, Abe. It may seem harsh, but if they stay down there for long enough, their children can be that new generation.”